Slovakia have won both of their Nations League C games so far and I’ve backed them on both occasions.

They’re clearly the best nation in this group, it happens quite often in the C tier of this competition that the groups are quite heavily skewed with one nation being there that is clearly superior to the others.

Slovakia have scored four goals across their two games, conceding just once and have dominated the underlying numbers in these games as well - Kazakhstan only generated an xG of 0.18 from three shots against them last time out.

I think Faroe Islands will face similar challenges here given that they’ve failed to beat either of the nations that Slovakia have dismissed quite easily so far and allowed Moldova to have 22 shots and generate an xG of 1.68 last time out. 

France have won both of their games to nil in the Nations League so far, winning 1-0 against both Italy and Türkiye on the road. This is Zinedine Zidane’s first home game as the manager of the national team, and I think France gets all three points against an Italy side that are in transition.

Italy’s 4-1 win over Turkiye last time out flattered them quite a lot, it was more that Turkiye allowed Italy to dominate the game rather than Italy being impressive. They won’t get that space against a France side who limited Belgium to an xG of 0.69 last time out.

France beat Italy 3-1 when the nations last faced off in the Nations League back in 2024. I can see a similar outcome here with Italy travelling to the second strongest side in Europe with a young squad that has a long way to go if Italy want to get to the level of France, or even qualify for an international tournament.

Türkiye can struggle to see out games, but they do usually find a way to get on the scoresheet and should be able to breach Belgium’s backline here which is still taking shape under new manager Mark van Bommel.

Turkiye generated an xG of 1.21 in their opening game against France, despite only having 36% of the ball. They had 22 touches in the opposition box, just three fewer than their opponents, and also managed three shots on target which are numbers to suggest that they should have ended up on the scoresheet.

Turkiye did manage to find the back of the net against Italy last time out, falling to a 4-1 defeat which looks bad on paper but Italy were fortunate to win by that margin with Turkiye actually generating a higher xG than Mancini’s side (2.89-2.28). 

Bosnia saw six goals last time out as they came away 4-2 winners over Romania on the road, generating an xG of 2.59 in victory from 15 shots.

There are some decent young players coming through in this Bosnia side, with the three in behind 32 year old striker Tabakovic all being 21 or under and Kerim Alajbegovic standing out as a real player to watch having impressed at the World Cup as well as securing a move to Juventus over the summer.

Their opening game against Poland did finish 0-0, but their opponents here in Sweden should create the conditions for a high scoring game with Graham Potter’s side seeing 4+ goals in their two Nations League games so far as well as 2+ goals in each of their last 12 matches.

Sweden have covered this line on their own in both matches against Romania and Poland, but have failed to keep a clean sheet in both of those matches - and also have been at home for those games, with this assignment looking more difficult on paper.