World Cup preview: Cyprus faces the battle for honor, Austria needs to win and take the initiative to qualify
6686 Sports News on November 15th. Tomorrow morning at 1:00 am Beijing time, the World European Cup will usher in a matchup in the ninth round of Group H. Cyprus will face the visiting Austria at the home team.
Cyprus is currently ranked 125th in the world and is a weak team in Europe. In the first 7 games of this World Cup qualifying match, the team has a record of 2 wins, 2 draws and 3 losses, ranking fourth in Group H with 8 points. The team is still 5 points behind Bosnia and Herzegovina in second place. With the last game left, Cyprus has already been eliminated early.
After the first 7 games, the team scored 11 goals. For a team ranked outside the 100th place in the world, such statistics are already good. They also performed well on the defensive end, conceding only 9 goals. In fact, Cyprus' performance in this World Cup preliminaries is satisfactory enough. They drew with Bosnia and Herzegovina and Romania. They also won two games against the weak team San Marino. The last time they faced Austria, they only lost by 1 goal. The team can face the final battle of honor with its head held high.
Austria is ranked 24th in the world and is also a strong team in Europe. In Group H, Austria also stood out as expected. The team had a record of 5 wins and 1 loss in the first 6 games and ranked first in Group H with 15 points. However, they led Bosnia and Herzegovina by only 2 points and Romania, the leader, only had 5 points. Considering that Bosnia and Herzegovina still has a game against Romania, Austria has guaranteed at least a second place in the group.
In the first 7 games, Austria scored 19 goals, averaging more than 3 goals per game. The offensive efficiency is very scary. On the defensive end, they only conceded 3 goals.
In the 8th round of the competition, Austria had an excellent opportunity, but they suffered a 0-1 loss from Romania on the last shot. The suspense of qualifying for Group H still continues. The team still relies on the offensive ability of veteran player Anautovic, and his performance is also crucial. In addition, Rangnick said after losing in the last round that the team was too stupid to press forward at the last moment and lost the game. The team is likely to make adjustments in this game.
The two teams have faced off twice in history. This was the most recent showdown at the World Cup, and Austria only won by 1 goal. Although Austria had an absolute dribbling advantage and was ten times more valuable than its opponents, they failed to score a goal in a sports match against the Iron Barrel Formation. They relied on twelve yards to win with great difficulty. This game moves to the home stadium of Cyprus, and Austria needs to be very careful.
