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.

These were two of the most exciting nations at the World Cup and I can see a high scoring game between the two here with both having new managers.

France saw 3+ goals in five of their eight matches at the World Cup, bowing out at the semi final stage to eventual winners Spain. No side registered a higher xG than France at the World Cup (17.5), though admittedly this was slightly inflated by their crazy 6-4 defeat to England in the third placed playoff game.

However, Belgium can also contribute to a high scoring encounter having also impressed at the World Cup, to the surprise of some, seeing 3+ goals in four of their six matches at the World Cup with three of these games being knockout matches.

Furthermore, Belgium were the only side throughout the World Cup who managed to breach the backline of Spain - which shouldn’t be overlooked, they’ve got the attacking quality to cause some of these elite nations issues.

These sides met in the most recent Nations League campaign back in 2024, with that game seeing exactly three goals as France ran out 2-1 winners over Belgium as the away side with a combined xG of 4.18 on that occasion.