Sweden will know how important this competition is after qualifying for the World Cup through the Nations League, despite a disastrous qualifying campaign.

That qualifying run was right at the start of Potter’s tenure as Sweden coach, and they have improved since then with their opening game of the Nations League seeing them come away 2-1 winners over Romania.

Poland were disappointing in their opener against Bosnia, failing to score as the away side earned a point through a 0-0 draw. Their underlying numbers were a bit worrying as well, generating an xG of just 0.73 from 14 shots and only creating one big chance.

Sweden beat Poland 3-2 in the final stage of qualifying to reach the World Cup, that clash was as recently as March - giving us a good base to go off for how this game will play out.

I’m still far from sold on this Italy project, they’ve turned back to Roberto Mancini to try and inspire the sort of run that led them to the European Championship in his previous tenure - but they have to qualify for an international tournament first.

The rot within the Italian FA is far deeper than just the players not performing. Italy have neglected the youth pathways over recent years and have been left with several young players that haven’t developed as they would have in many other nations.

That said, Mancini has picked a very young squad for this international break which creates a different issue as Italy are almost trying to force the development of these young players all at once - without a set culture or direction like we see with Spain as the best example.

Türkiye underperformed at the World Cup (again) but still showed enough to convince me to back them to score here. They registered an xG of 6.60 across their three matches, scoring three goals in their final game against USA.

Türkiye scored 17 goals across six games during qualifying, including netting twice on the road against Spain.

Northern Ireland were pretty fortunate to keep Georgia out in their opening game of the Nations League, conceding an xG of 1.71 and relying on Pierce Charles to have a man of the match performance - making four saves and stopping a penalty.

Hungary can consider themselves pretty unlucky too, having lost their opening game against Ukraine despite dominating the underlying numbers. Hungary took 17 shots, generating an xG of 2.03 and had 33 touches in the opposition box, as well as four efforts on target. 

Those dropped points in their opening game against Ukraine could prove costly as this group looks quite competitive on paper with Georgia also without any points following the opening game. I expect a reaction from Hungary here, and I’d be very surprised if Charles can replicate his display against Georgia.

I was really impressed with Belgium against Italy last time out, they were comfortably the better side and ran out 2-0 winners, taking 19 shots which generated an xG of 2.76.

They weren’t totally settled at the back though, allowing Italy to take 21 shots and generate an xG of 1.70 themselves without getting on the scoresheet. Mark van Bommel is willing to be quite bold with his set up, with the wide areas looking particularly promising.

France also got off to a winning start in the Nations League with a 1-0 win over Turkiye as the away side. Again, they allowed their opponents to have quite a few decent chances with 12 shots and an xG against of 1.21. 

I think we see both sides have opportunities in the final third under their new managers here, neither look completely set at the back in these early stages which should see goals at both ends.