Latvia and Montenegro square off in Group G on Wednesday evening looking to get their World Cup qualification bid off to a winning start.
With Netherlands, Turkey and Norway to come in the future, neither nation can afford to lose the fixture in Riga.
Match preview
Having suffered just one defeat in eight matches since September, Montenegro are on somewhat of a high as they look to qualify for their first World Cup.
Newly-appointed boss Miodrag Radulovic has his work cut out given the level of opposition standing in his side's way, but there is optimism ahead of the upcoming 10 fixtures.
Starting with games against Latvia and Gibraltar, Radulovic will hope to have maximum points on the board when they play host to Norway next week.
Realistically, one defeat from their opening triple-header will leave the Brave Falcons as rank outsiders to claim a top-two spot, although the bigger teams will not get complacent in fixtures against this team.
Star man Stevan Jovetic has been back in form on the club scene with two goals coming from his last four outings for Monaco.
From Latvia's perspective, a hugely disappointing UEFA Nations League campaign has left them to contemplate a year of difficult fixtures in this competition.
Latvia claimed just one win from six fixtures against Faroe Islands, Malta and Andorra, realistically putting them in a situation where they may be content with finishing ahead of Gibraltar.
Dainis Kazakevics was not in charge for their most recent notable victory, a 1-0 success over Austria, but he will hope that it remains in the memories of his players ahead of fixtures against opposition of a similar level.
Latvia have scored nine goals in their last three matches, something which can only give them belief ahead of playing host to Montenegro.
- D
- D
- L
- W
- D
- W
- D
- W
- L
- D
- D
- W
Team News
With Stefan Savic back available for this game, Radulovic is expected to hand an immediate recall to the Atletico Madrid defender.
Fatos Beciraj is in line to feature in the final third as a replacement for Stefan Mugosa, while Adam Marusic may switch to right-back to allow Risto Radunovic to play on the opposite flank.
After thrashing Andorra by a 5-0 scoreline back in November, Kazakevics may see little reason to make any alterations to his team.
Davis Ikaunieks scored twice during that fixture, doubling the amount of goals that he scored in his first 27 appearances for his country.
Latvia possible starting lineup:
Ozols; Savalnieks, Cernomordijs, Dubra, Jurkovskis; Kamess, Zjuzins, Karklins, Ciganiks; Ikaunieks, Gutkovskis
Montenegro possible starting lineup:
Mijatovic; Marusic, Vujacic, Savic, Radunovic; Boljevic, Scekic, Bakic, Haksabanovic; Mugosa, Jovetic
We say: Latvia 1-3 Montenegro
While Montenegro have dropped down the world rankings in recent years, they still enough quality in their ranks to be respected in this group. With that in mind, we are backing Jovetic and Co to get off to a convincing start as they look to take full advantage of a favourable double-header.
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 Montenegro win with a probability of 47.18%. A draw had a probability of 27.8% and a win for Latvia had a probability of 25%.
The most likely scoreline for a Montenegro win was 0-1 with a probability of 14.23%. The next most likely scorelines for that outcome were 0-2 (9.6%) and 1-2 (8.64%). The likeliest drawn scoreline was 1-1 (12.81%), while for a Latvia win it was 1-0 (9.5%). The actual scoreline of 1-2 was predicted with an 8.6% likelihood. Our data analysis correctly predicted that Montenegro would win this match.
