Proving to be one of Italy's bogey teams down the years, North Macedonia have never failed to score against their more esteemed counterparts and should play with the shackles off on Friday, having already been condemned to their fate.
However, the Lynxes' luck against the Euro 2020 holders is sure to run out soon, and with the Olimpico crowd behind them, we can only picture the Azzurri coming up trumps, thus giving themselves a crucial injection of confidence ahead of Monday's crunch clash with the Ukrainians.
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Data Analysis
Our analysis of all available data, including recent performances and player stats up until an hour before kickoff, suggested the most likely outcome of this match was a Italy win with a probability of 70.63%. A draw had a probability of 18.5% and a win for North Macedonia had a probability of 10.91%.
The most likely scoreline for a Italy win was 2-0 with a probability of 13.33%. The next most likely scorelines for that outcome were 1-0 (12.43%) and 3-0 (9.53%). The likeliest drawn scoreline was 1-1 (8.75%), while for a North Macedonia win it was 0-1 (4.08%). The actual scoreline of 5-2 was predicted with a 0.5% likelihood. Our team at Sports Mole and our data analysis both correctly predicted that Italy would win this match.
0.36) 
-0.42) 
