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Aron Wright - March 19, 2018
Slovakia vs UAE
International Friendlies – King’s Cup
Date: Thursday, 22 March 2018
Kick-Off at 09:30 UK
Venue: Rajamangala National Stadium (Bangkok).
Slovakia decided to travel on East to visit Thailand’s capital of Bangkok where they will try and claim the title at the King’s Cup. The competition has the character of a friendly and it features four nations. Apart from the likes of Slovakia and United Arab Emirates who’ll meet each other in the first semifinal on Thursday, the host nation will lock horns with Gabon for the place in the final of the competition later on the day.
The Slovaks have won the competition back in 2004 (their lone title), and they will be favourites to match that result this time out. The team led by Jan Kozak managed to finish second in their respective qualifying group, but it was unfortunately not enough for the playoffs (they were that one weakest second-placed side in the campaign).
The Europeans are thus ready for the brand new start as they want to build up the winning mentality in a set of friendlies before the start of the EURO 2020 Qualifications and the first edition of UEFA Nations League.
United Arab Emirates were six points shy of the second-placed Saudi Arabia in their group of Asian WC Qualification. They have sky-high ambitions ahead of the next qualifying campaign which is why they’ve hired the experienced Italian manager Alberto Zaccheroni as the new head coach in November last year. UAE have been super stern at the back in their recent outings and they will come into this with six straight clean sheets (each of last four games they’ve played ended in a goalless draw).
This will be the third head to head encounter between the two rivals.
Slovakia came on top on both occasions in two previous ties, both times by a single goal margin (1-2 and 0-1).
Matches happened back in 1994 and 2006.
Since Slovakia have also kept their net untouched in the previous friendly in November last year (1-0 win over Norway), we have reasons to expect a low-scoring contest knowing that UAE have not conceded a single goal in last six games.
We, however, do expect that the European side will snatch the victory at the end and braver tipsters can try with the 1-0 scoreline at the odds of 1.85.
Under 2.5 goals FT @ 1.85
Slovakia to win 1-0 @ 5.50
