Netherlands vs France: Preview and Prediction

Netherlands vs France
European Qualifiers – 2018 World Cup
Date: Monday, 10th October 2016
Kick-off: 19:45 UK
Venue: Amsterdam Arena.

Netherlands and France won their respective matches on day 2 convincingly after being held to draws on the opening day. Both wins were at home and by the same 4-1 margin as the Dutch eased past Belarus and the French came from a goal behind to see off Bulgaria.

The Group A is opening up with Netherlands and France facing off against each other with 4 points at the top of the table. While Sweden are third with same points and Bulgaria on fourth with 3 points. This is a key fixture that could affect the outcome at the end of the qualifiers and both Netherlands and France do not to want to be at the losing end on Monday.

Netherlands vs France: Head-to-Head Stats

France defeated Netherlands by a 3-2 score-line, when they met for a friendly on March 2016. This is their second win in a row with both coming in a friendly meetings.

This is the first time these two sides are meeting in a qualifying fixture since their two meetings in the group stage of 1982 World Cup Qualifiers. The teams shared a win each on that occasion, both in the respective home fixtures.

It is hard to separate the two teams looking at their over head-to-head stats. France have won 11 and Netherlands 10 from the 24 meetings between these them, with 3 matches seeing draws.

Netherlands vs France: Prediction

There is little difference on form between these two sides at the moment. And as seen in previous meetings, the matches between France and Netherlands are often closely contested. Also, both sides are famous for their occasional inconsistency. So it is better to ignore the full-time result and look into the goal markets for this fixture.

Four of the last six meetings between France and Netherlands have seen over 2.5 goals. And if you ignore the stats from Euro 2016, 7 of the last 10 matches of both sides in all competitions have produced more than 3 goals. So it is better to pick over 2.5 goals for this fixture and it is very likely that both teams will score at least once here.