Yesterday's talk about England is very powerful, directly beat North Macedonia 7-0, very happy, Tuesday first talk about the European qualifiers, Bulgaria's view of Serbia.
Serbia is missing three strikers today, and according to official sources, Fulham's Mitrovic, Juventus' Vlahovic and Fiorentina's Jovic, the three preferred number nine, are all unable to play Bulgaria because of injuries.
Mitrovic is Serbia's all-time top scorer, tied with Haaland for top scorer in the UEFA Nations League, and Vlahovic also scored three of his two European qualifiers in March, including a double against Montenegro as a substitute. In this current football scene where high school strikers are scarce, Serbia is fortunate to have two excellent players, and today they are absent at the same time, Serbia's offensive ability is bound to be greatly reduced, especially the Bulgarian team will still put a big bus.
However, there are two fatal problems in Bulgaria's backline that could make their defense less solid today.
The first is that the defenders are too young. Bulgaria are currently in the process of alternating between old and new, with an average age of 23, they are the youngest of all the teams participating in the European Qualifiers, especially the backline, with an average age of only 22 years old, and a serious lack of major competition experience.
With the retirement of veterans such as commander Nedyalkov, Bulgaria still needs a lot of run-in work to get through this sluggish stage, playing three games in the European Qualifiers, they have made frequent mistakes due to the chaos of their own back line, giving their opponents too many opportunities, and striker Stoyanov, who plays as a full-back, is also temperless.
Second, Bulgaria's air defense is too poor. This is an old problem for Bulgaria, after all, their players are generally short in height, and this objective reason determines that the team's air defense is very poor, and it is easy for opponents to seize set-piece opportunities to score. In order to solve this problem, coach Korsstadic in this year's European qualifiers, one of the key criteria for recruiting new people is height, so in the list they submitted this time, there are suddenly several more big men of one meter nine, such as Petrov who is 194 and Petkov who is 191, who are selected for the senior national team for the first time.
But set-pieces are never possible with tall players, otherwise there wouldn't be so many strong teams with bad set-pieces. The improvement of set-piece defense requires a lot of training, and the degree of tacit understanding between players is also very demanding, like Bulgaria's players, there are many new faces, young age, want to quickly grind the effect, it is not easy. So we saw that when they played Hungary in March, they easily scored two headers from their opponents and sealed the win in the first half.
Against such a team, it may not even need Mitrovic or Vlahovic, to exaggerate, everyone can be a central striker. Serbia's players are tall, with an average height of 192 for the three main defenders, not only have good air defense, but also score goals, and there are also good competitors like Milinković Savic in the midfield, and the threat from set-pieces is not small.
In the friendly against Jordan, American striker Dejan Jovelić scored twice to help his team extend their advantage and seal the victory in five minutes, and his performance in the forward line today is also worth looking forward to. In this game, Serbia rotated the lineup, and compared to Bulgaria, which was crazy about possession in the last game, there were not many physical problems.
For a team like Serbia, plenty of fitness can play a decisive role in the team's form. In the fight against weak teams, Serbia's pressing is very powerful, which can make the opponent's defense due to chaos with a lot of mistakes, Bulgaria's defense can be said to be at the community level among the European preliminaries, and I am afraid that the original form will be revealed when encountering Serbia in form.
In fact, Bulgaria's real strength now is far inferior to their ranking, last game, Bulgaria faced Lithuania, which ranked far below itself, and played one more man in 17 minutes, and what are the chances of winning against Serbia today? After looking at the national European preliminary database, I am currently expecting Serbia to beat Bulgaria directly, what is everyone's opinion?