Austria v Holland/Germany v Hungary. Double from Dmitry Khlestkin

Austria v Holland

There seems to be a trend developing for Austria in friendlies, and this trend is both teams to score. Austria were involved in a both teams to score outcome in each of their last five friendlies. On top of this they’ve also scored plenty of goals, and their run without failing to score now stretches to 23 games.

At the same time, Holland have conceded in 16 out of the 19 games that they have played since finishing third in the 2014 World Cup. The only times they’ve kept a clean sheet was in two games against Latvia and in a friendly match against Spain. In that Spain game Vicente Del Bosque fielded Juanmi as a primary striker, who didn’t score a single goal for Southampton in 15/16 season.

Despite not looking in great shape defensively, the Oranje haven’t struggled too much at the other end and have produced goals in 15 out of these 19 games. Both sides are seemingly better suited to attacking than defending, something that their recent records would support, so both teams to score looks a likely outcome in this one.

Germany v Hungary

Losing 1-3 at home to Slovakia isn’t the sort of form that Joachim Löw expects from Die Mannschaft. Perhaps this result exposed the World Cup winners’ defensive frailties, or maybe it was just a one off. With the line-up that day looking somewhat experimental it was probably the latter and this result shouldn’t be viewed as a guide to how they’ll perform at EURO 2016. In this game, Löw is expected to field Neuer, Hummels, Özil, Kroos, Müller and other key players who missed the Slovakia game.

For Germany, this will be the run through to the Euros, and the last chance to improve teamwork, which didn’t look perfect at all in the friendly they lost against England some months back. But this time I think the Germans are likely to take the match very seriously and when the bookies are offering 13/20 for a -1 handicap bet on a motivated Germany side, against opponents like Hungary, it’s worth adding to this bet.