Belarus - Bulgaria

Belarus welcome Bulgaria in a friendly game in Minsk on Wednesday at 18:00 GMT. The hosts still have good chances of qualifying for the European Championships in Poland and Ukraine next year whereas their opponents are practically out of the fight. Both teams will be willing to save their energy and I expect a game with few goalscoring chances and my pick here is the “Under 2.5 goals” option.

Belarus are currently sitting in 2nd place in the qualifying group as they trail leaders and favourites France by only a point. The former Soviet Union republic have significantly improve the level of their club and national football in the last few years and it is not surprising that they will be the favourites against Bulgaria on Wednesday. The team managed to get four points from the last two qualifying games against France (1:1) and Luxembourg (2:0) so they will be on the up. Belarus have recorded five consecutive low-scoring games in which they scored only four times so I expect another tight encounter.

Bulgaria have recently slipped even further down the FIFA rankings but this is not surprising given their performances in the last few qualifying campaigns. The Bulgarians last managed to qualify for a big forum in 2004 and since then they have struggled to find their feet. New head coach Lotar Mateus seems to be doing good job but he will definitely need more time to make the necessary changes. He will not rely on Martin Petrov and Stilian Petrov as they are still preparing for the start of the Premiership whereas the big star Dimitar Berbatov retired from the national team. Seven of the last eight Bulgaria games finished with two or less goals.

The only game between the two teams in Belarus also finished with the “Under” option so this bet is worth the odds of 1.61.