Nations League action continues with Slovakia and Kazakhstan meeting at the Anton Malatinsky Stadium this Monday night as the two nations look to build on impressive starts to the campaign and three points on the board early on.
League C Group 3 in the Nations League this season is perhaps the closest group across the entire competition as Slovakia, Belarus, Azerbaijan, and Kazakhstan all attempt their promotion bids into the next group.
#MATCHDAY 🇸🇰 Словакия – Қазақстан 🇰🇿🏆 @EURO2024 | Топтық кезең🏟 Трнава, Словакия⏱ 00:45 (NUR)📺 @qazsporttv Алға, қазақ елі! Намысты қолдан берме! 👊🏻💛💙#БіздіңЖігіттер #KFFTeam #SlovakiaKazakhstan #UEFANationsLeague pic.twitter.com/ixFVopFfr5— Kazakhstan Football Federation (@KFF_Team) June 6, 2022
#MATCHDAY 🇸🇰 Словакия – Қазақстан 🇰🇿🏆 @EURO2024 | Топтық кезең🏟 Трнава, Словакия⏱ 00:45 (NUR)📺 @qazsporttv Алға, қазақ елі! Намысты қолдан берме! 👊🏻💛💙#БіздіңЖігіттер #KFFTeam #SlovakiaKazakhstan #UEFANationsLeague pic.twitter.com/ixFVopFfr5
Slovakia are coming off the back of a relatively comfortable win away to Belarus in the opening week of action last Friday, as Tomas Suslov scored the game's only goal.
Belarus barely tested a stubborn Slovakian defence, and with Inter Milan superstar, Milan Skriniar, captaining them at the back, the country will be keen to keep a clean sheet each time.
They also entered this Nations League campaiang with a completely different team to the one this generation of Slovakians have been used to. The likes of Juraj Kucka, Skriniar, and Stanislav Lobotka are still around, as is 109-cap defender Peter Pekarik.
On the other hand, much of the attention this camp has been on Marek Hamisk, who with his all-time goalscoring record of 26 goals scored from his record of 135 caps, has retired from international duty alongside Michal Duris and Tomas Hubocan.
This Nations League is now the first major tournament the country has entered since 2006 without at least one of these legendary players.
It hasn’t been an easy past year for Slovakia either. The nation failed to get out of their Euro 2020 group, and lost to Spain 5-0 and Sweden 1-0 in the recent March internationals.
A fantastic 2-1 win over Poland was the highlight of their Euro 2020 run, but they won only two of their next seven games in the World Cup qualifiers and will not be at Qatar.
As for Kazakhstan, they ended up in last place in their group, as they didn't win a single game in Group D with them losing five and drawing three other games.
Kazakhstan would let in an alarming 20 goals in the process, as they scored just five times themselves. They also finished on the joint-third lowest amount of points across all 10 European groups with 1.
Slovakia are the clear favourites to win this game and this group, and rightfully so. Forebet predicts they will win here and for the game to see over 2.5 goals, despite Kazakhstan’s solid 2-0 win over Azerbaijan.