Soccer AM: 21-Year-Old Florian Wirtz is Germany's Best Weapon

Croatia vs Albania under 2.5 goals (-110 at Bet365)
Backing under 2.5 goals might appear like a strange one here, given both Croatia and Albania’s first games in this tournament saw three goals scored in each, but stick with me. The Spanish walked all over Croatia, who were exceptionally poor on the day. With the greatest of respect to Albania, this is a dramatic step down in quality. Meanwhile Italy’s 2-1 win over Albania was impacted hugely by Albania scoring in the first minute. They immediately sat back and let Italy attack them. We’re unlikely to see such an early goal again, meaning this should be far tighter for longer. Given both teams need something from this game there’s unlikely to be many risks in their play, at least earlier on in the match.

Croatia to win by one goal (+250 at Bet365)
Croatia should win this one, although odds of -215 on the moneyline are far from appealing. This is an aging team with their talisman, 38-year old Luka Modric, not quite the player that he was at his peak. We’ve seen throughout international tournaments in recent years that Croatia are pragmatic, and that’s likely to be the case here. The Croats know their weaknesses, so they’ll likely come into today looking to manage the game, get a solitary goal and then just see the match out. This shouldn’t be high scoring and the Albanians are unlikely to let Croatia get too far ahead of them.

Florian Wirtz to score (+185 at BetRivers)
Germany hit Scotland for five goals in the opening game and looked hugely dangerous. Their young superstar Florian Wirtz had another great match, scoring the opening goal after just 10 minutes. The interplay between him and Jamaal Musiala in the dual 10 roles behind Kai Havertz was very fluid and allowed Wirtz to get into some dangerous positions. He took three shots against Scotland and looks like the Germans’ main goal threat going forward. Given the season he had for Bayer Leverkusen, scoring 18 goals in all competitions, it’s clear that he is dangerous in the opposition box. And given how poor Hungary were defensively against Switzerland in their first match, we should see chances fall to Wirtz.

Switzerland to win (-118 at BetRivers)
The most intriguing bet of Wednesday’s Euro 2024 slate has to be Switzerland to beat Scotland at -118. Scotland’s 5-1 defeat to the Germans on the opening day was the worst performance of any team in the competition so far. They were utterly hopeless, looking timid in the tackle, failing to press effectively, and letting the Germans have their way. Scotland surely cannot be that bad again, but they still will likely struggle to beat the Swiss, who really excelled in their 3-1 win over Hungary. There had been doubts over this team coming into the tournament after a poor qualifying campaign and disharmony in the camp, but they looked like a solid, cohesive team last time out and really should beat the Scots here.

Switzerland -1 (+270 at FanDuel)
As an extension of the above bet, we’re also looking at Switzerland -1 on the spread, at a juicy price of +270. It could be too big to give up, especially when Scotland lost their last game by four goals and the Swiss won theirs by two. If the Swiss play like they did against Hungary this has a very good chance of winning, even if the Scots play well. And if the Scottish don’t see significant improvement from the Germany defeat then this should win very easily. This wager really depends on how the Scots bounce back.