Portugal, Switzerland, the Netherlands, and Sweden get group B underway at the 2022 UEFA Euros this Saturday. Among the numerous legal Canadian and US sportsbooks with markets for Saturday’s matches is Caesars.
Caesars favors the Portuguese against the Swiss and Sweden against the Dutch, but by a small margin. Bettors can watch the matches in the US on ESPN while UEFA.tv offers live streaming in Canada. A look at why the odds are the way they are depends on recent forms.
Portugal, Switzerland look to get leg up on advancing
Portugal and Switzerland will meet for the first time since March 2019 Saturday. The Swiss won that meeting, 3-1. Portugal’s last win over Switzerland was in a February 2015 friendly, a 1-0 victory courtesy of a strike from Andreia Silva.
Portugal has only played in the finals of the UEFA Women’s European Championship once previously, finishing bottom of their group in 2017 after losing two of their three games, winning the other 2-1 against Scotland.
Switzerland’s only previous appearance at the finals of the UEFA Women’s Euros was at the last tournament in 2017, going out in the group stages after finishing third in their group behind Austria and France.
At the 2017 UEFA Women’s Euros, Portugal had the fewest shots in the group stages of any nation while only Iceland had fewer shots on target than the Portuguese managed.
Switzerland manager Nils Nielsen took charge of Denmark at the 2017 UEFA Women’s Euros, leading them to the final of the competition. He will be the first Danish manager to take charge of a non-Danish nation in the competition.
More than half of Switzerland’s 20 goals in the group stage qualifying for the UEFA Women’s Euros were scored by a combination of Ana-Maria Crnogorcevic and Ramona Bachmann.
Champions get their title defense underway
Then, the holders of the tournament and one of the favorites meet again. This is the second UEFA Women’s Euros meeting between the Netherlands and Sweden, with the former winning 2-0 in the 2017 quarter-final on home soil.
The most recent meeting between the Netherlands and Sweden was in July 2019 at the Women’s World Cup. That was a 1-0 win in extra time for the Dutch thanks to a goal from Jackie Groenen.
The UEFA Women’s Euros reigning champions have never lost their first game at the next tournament with Sweden facing the reigning champions in their first game in successive tournaments. In that match, they drew 0-0 with Germany in 2017.
The Netherlands are on a six-match winning run at the UEFA Women’s Euros, with all six wins coming in their victorious 2017 tournament. Only one team has ever had a longer winning run with Germany winning 19 consecutive matches in the competition between 1997 and 2009.
Sweden has lost just two of its 18 UEFA Women’s Euros group stage matches. They did lose their most recent such match, though, against Italy in 2017.
The Netherlands won all six of its UEFA Women’s Euros matches in 2017 on home soil, winning the tournament. Actually, in their eight matches not played in their home country, they’ve won just twice, failing to score in all three matches in 2013 played in Sweden.
