Austria – Albania. Mark O’Haire’s prediction

Austria recorded a splendid W9-D1-L0 during Group G of their Euro 2016 qualification campaign and their masterclass performances against Russia and Sweden have understandably caught the attention of the continent.

Head coach Marcel Koller has a 23-man squad that’s full of confidence, experience and is well stocked in predominantly Bundesliga-based talent across the board.

So considering Austria have W9-D1-L2 in their past 12 and W12-D4-L2 across their last 18, it’s not a huge surprise to see Das Team chalked up 6/10 quotes. However, I’ve no interest in those sorts of prices in non-competitive matches.

Das Team have returned W2-D3-L5 in friendlies since June 2012 and although they’ve faced reasonably strong opposition consistently, it just reiterates the need to steer clear of skinny odds in these sorts of fixtures.

In Vienna, Austria have W9-D4-L5 from their last 18 but only games against Lichtenstein, Faroe Islands and Kazakhstan have the hosts cleared a one-goal handicap. And since 2008, they’ve kept only three clean sheets in meaningless matches W6-D4-L12 as hosts.

Albania are easily written off but they’re a hardy bunch and I believe they can keep this game much more competitive than the pre-match odds suggest. So much so that, I’m backing Albania with a +1 handicap at 2.37.

Visiting boss Giovanni De Biasi was awarded the country’s highest civil honour, The Honor of Nation Order and took Albanian citizenship in 2015. The Italian has moulded a defensively resolute and supremely organised squad, led by Nantes centre-half Lorik Cana.

Rarely are the guests embarrassed these days. In fact, Albania have lost just once by two or more goals in a 26-game streak dating back four years, including games against France (won 1-0, drew 1-1), Italy (lost 1-0), Portugal (beat 1-0, lost 1-0) and Denmark (drew twice).

The Eagles went through qualifying without conceding a goal away from home and have recorded W4-D4-L2 since 2012 on their travels.