Turkey vs Montenegro

Turkey and Montenegro will battle it out for supremacy in World Cup Qualifying Group G as they lock horns at Vodafone Park in a must-win fixture for both sides.

Turkey sit atop Group G after three rounds (W2, D1), though just a single point separates four sides in this proverbial ‘group of death’ ahead of the kick-off. Despite scoring 3+ goals in all three World Cup qualifiers so far, a thoroughly disappointing Euro 2020 campaign that saw them finish the competition with joint-lowest zero points and the worst -7 goal difference (GF:1, GA:8) might give the ‘Crescent-Stars’ a few reasons for concern. With that in mind, Turkey’s hopes of securing a berth at the World Cup finals for the first time since their historic third-place finish in 2002 could be up in the air. On the bright side, though, the hosts have suffered just one defeat from 15 home matches since the turn of 2019 (W9, D5), scoring 2+ goals in seven of the last eight.

In the meantime, after overcoming lowly Lativa and Gibraltar in their opening two World Cup Qualifying fixtures, Montenegro succumbed to a narrow 1-0 home loss to Norway last time out as they sit a point adrift of Turkey heading into this clash. After failing to win any of their only previous H2Hs against this opposition (D1, L1), a victory here looks improbable, though it would lift Montenegro’s hopes of bettering their third-place finish from their last World Cup Qualifying campaign. The ‘Brave Falcons’ can take some confidence from going unbeaten in five consecutive away fixtures (W3, D2) since a 7-0 thrashing to England in November 2019. A low-scoring theme highlighted Montengro’s undefeated streak, with four of the five games during that sequence featuring under 2.5 total goals.