Soccer Euro 2012 06/16 Free Premium Play: Poland vs Czech Republic

Euro 2012 - Group A - Poland vs Czech Republic

After watching yesterday’s game between Sweden and England, I couldn’t stop noticing the fact that how badly the teams are defending the set pieces plays on this Euro tournament. Most of the teams are defending man-to-man and there is always one player that fails on his assignment just to watch his opponent calmly and easily score the goal – just watch the two Swedish goals yesterday. Also the defensive coverage outside the box has been atrocious in those plays: Theo Walcott scored the 2nd goal for England after a corner in which he was left wide open outside the box in the center, something that cannot ever happen!

For today, I like Poland to win and to consequently qualify for the next round. First of all, let me say that I wouldn’t be surprised if something “weird” happens in this contest regarding some referee decision. Poland is playing at home and historically this kind of things happen quite often on Euro and World Cup tournaments.

Czech Republic is coming from a win against Greece where they scored 2 early goals, but I’m still not convinced with them. Milan Baros is completely out of form while Czech Republic's best player Thomas Rosicky got injured and he is not 100% fit right now. Therefore, the Czech side doesn't offer a lot danger offensively to Poland in my opinion.

After a bad defensive performance against Russia, Czech Republic performed better against Greece, but such improvement was expected due to the gap of quality between the two teams. Greece doesn’t have speed on the wings while they basically play direct football while Russia has two explosive back wingers that attack quite often. Well, Poland has a potent right wing with the two players from Dortmund and a great striker in Lewandowski, so the Czech Republic will struggle to defend the Polish right side of the field. I would be more comfortable in taking a PK line, but a -0.25 line still offers us a lot of value on Poland today. Therefore, I'll be taking the Polish side on this contest.

Pick: 3 units (Single Dime Play) on Poland (-0,25) @ +101 / 2.01 on Pinnacle