England Women v Scotland Women UEFA Euro 2017 Betting Tip:
There is a big rivalry going down at the UEFA Women’s Euro 2017 tournament on Wednesday, July 19th when neighbours England and Scotland go toe to toe in Group D. This will be the first time that the two home nations have met in the final of a major women’s tournament and it is England’s Lionesses who are trading as strong 2/7 outright favourites at Betway to get the maximum points on the board in this opener. England are favourites to top the group which also contains Spain and debutants, Portugal.
While England are the favourites, there is nothing easy about navigating your way through a derby match, especially not in the pressure-cooker arena of a tournament. Like Portugal, Scotland are making their Euro’s debut as well and they will try and produce the performance of their lives to frustrate and grind something out of this tough opening challenge ahead of them in Utrecht. Scotland are 11/1 underdogs at bet365 to pull out a victory in this one.
England Women Form
England, along with France and Germany are one of the frontrunners for the tournament. Back in the 2009 Euro’s England were runners up but they made a group stage exit in 2013 after picking up just a point. But they bounced back with that brilliant third place at the 2015 Women’s World Cup against all the odds and with a nice draw potentially ahead of them in this summer’s Euros, they are expected to be a threat here.
England breezed through their qualification campaign with a W7 D1 record, scoring 32 goals and conceding just the one. With established goalscoring power in their ranks through the likes of Ellen White, Jodi Taylor and Toni Duggan, the Lionesses will be expected to make an impression at the tournament and in this opener.
Scotland Form
So the Scots are entering new territory here after having failed to qualify for the previous editions of the Women’s European Championships. The Scots finished second in their qualification group, after being edged out on goal difference by Iceland after a W7 D0 L1 record in their eight games. It has been a good step forward from the Scots who were actually the top ranked of all the second-placed teams in the UEFA Women’s Euro 2017 qualification.
Scotland will be going into the tournament without key injured players in Kim Little, Jenny Beattie and Emma Mitchell and they are facing a massive deficit too in the head to head with their rivals from south of the border.
News
While this will be the first meeting in the final of a major tournament for these two neighbours, it will be the 25th clash overall and England are up in that head to head with a W21 D1 L2 record against the Scots.
Six of those previous 24 matches have been competitive ones which occurred in qualifying for the 1984, 1987 and 1993 Euro’s.
England won all six of those competitive meetings with Scotland and they inflicted Scotland’s heaviest margin of defeat on them as well, when they beat them 8-0 in their second ever meeting back in 1973. Scotland’s first win over England was back in 1997 and it took them until 2011 to follow it up with their second.
Top Betting Tips
Scotland will no doubt knuckle down with a bit of grit and hope to grind a point out of this one. The head to head is firmly in favour of England’s Lionesses here and they can boast the extra scoring power and experience to pull off three points.
But it may be a tense affair and while England Women to win to nil is appealing at 10/11 with Ladbrokes, because this could be a nervy opener for the Lionesses, England Women to win by a 1 Goal margin for a price of 13/5 at bet365 looks pretty hot value.