Nottm Forest v Preston
15:00
Scotland’s campaign to qualify for their first World Cup since 1998 begins with a trip to Malta, who haven’t yet qualified for the World Cup in their history. Indeed, the Maltese have lost 20 of their last 26 games and they face a Scottish side that were only beaten three times in qualification for the Euros, with two of those narrow 2-1 and 3-2 defeats against World Champions, Germany.
Malta have avoided defeat in half of their last eight home matches but their record when hosting sides that are ranked more than 50 places higher than them (Scotland are 112 places above them in our rankings) is W1-D2-L8 since 2013, though only three of these defeats were by more than one goal as they proved competitive in 1-0 defeats against both Italy and Croatia.
Scotland lost a couple of tough fixtures in Italy and France ahead of the Euros, but they had been in good form prior to that, with wins over Denmark the Czech Republic. Though they’ve only won two of their last eight road games, their record when travelling to sides that are ranked outside the world’s top-100 is W5-D0-L2 since 2011, as they led at the break in five of these games, though only two of their wins were by more than one goal, and one of those came against lowly Gibraltar. As a result, we’re backing the Scots to triumph but only by a narrow margin.
