Sweden – Switzerland

In our soccer betting tips for today we are going to examine the World Cup 1/8-final game between Sweden and Switzerland. These two European sides will meet at the Saint Petersburg Stadium in the beautiful city of St. Petersburg.

For both of these teams it’s a great opportunity to reach the 1/4-finals of the World Cup. Sweden will try to do it for a first time since 1994, while the Swiss team is waiting for this since 1954. It’s really difficult to pick a favourite here, because both teams look incredibly even in terms of quality. Some journalists are saying that Switzerland are a slight favourite here, but we tend to disagree. We think that these two sides are completely even when we talk about their chances to progress to the next phase.

Sweden did pretty well in the group stage of the competition. The Scandinavians suffered a dramatic last minute defeat against the world champion Germany, but they enjoyed wins over South Korea and Mexico. This allowed them to reach the 1/8-finals, escaping from a really tough group. The same group which swallowed the current champion of the world Germany.

Switzerland had an impressive start of the World Cup, making a 1-1 draw against the five time world champion Brazil. The Nati went unbeaten in the group stage, winning against Serbia and making a draw in their final game with Costa Rica. Despite of winning just once in the group, Switzerland qualified for the 1/8-finals of the tournament.

This Swiss team is a product of many years of hard work. The football in the country is developing pretty fast in the last few years, with the national team being the biggest winner. Now Switzerland are a force to be reckoned with and this is their big chance to leave a big mark on the World Cup. Reaching the 1/4-finals would be a huge achievement for the Nati and you can be sure that they will not stop dreaming there.

Both managers – Janne Andersson and Vladimir Petkovic have some problems before the 1/8-final clash.

Sweden can’t use the influental midfielder Sebastian Larsson, who is suspended for the game. The 33-years old midfielder is a key figure for the Swedish team, so the manager Janne Andersson will have to find a proper way to replace him.

Meanwhile Vladimir Petkovic will be without two of his key defenders – Fabian Schar and Stephan Lichtsteiner, who is also the captain of the team. Both of them are suspended for the next game. This means that Petkovic will have to change 1/2 of his entire defense, which is never a good thing to do. But in this case, he just doesn’t have a choice.

This is going to be the first time when these two teams will meet at a major tournament. They have met 29 times so far, with Switzerland having an advantage in the head to head record with 11 wins.

These are our soccer betting tips for today for the World Cup 1/8-final game between Sweden and Switzerland. We can say that this is a clash between two teams with different characteristics. Sweden are more of a physical team, which really rely on the strenght and the muscle of its players. In the same time Switzerland are the more technical side with a little bit of more creativity in its game. How we said, it’s hard to say that there’s a favourite in this clash. But that’s one of the reasons why this game is so interesting as well.