Italy vs. Austria Predictions: All about the Italians

Italy are very short-priced favorites to beat Austria and that is no surprise looking at their recent history. Neil Monnery isn't set to go against conventional wisdom in this one...

Location: London, England

Date: Saturday, June 26

Kick Off Time: 3PM ET

TV: ABC

Before I started writing this preview, the first thing I did was guess the Moneyline and see how big of a favorite Italy were. They are -210 to -225 across the board and that is slightly longer than I thought in my head (-250 to -300) but that certainly doesn’t mean I’ll be taking the value play and picking them to win this market at such short odds.

I won’t bury the lead in that I think Italy have been the most impressive team so far at Euro 2020 and I fully expect them to beat Austria. Picking teams at such short odds on the Moneyline however is just not my thing. So I’ll see what is out there in the prop betting market.

Austria of course shouldn’t just be dismissed entirely. They won two of their three group games and the only one they lost was in the Amsterdam Arena to a resurgent Netherlands side. For me though, a late win over North Macedonia and a 1-0 over Ukraine (which to be fair - should have been won by a far more convincing margin) doesn’t exactly move the needle.

Having watched a boat load of EPL over the years, I know that Marko Arnautovic can be an absolute game changer when on song. I said to myself he was +500 or longer to score anytime then I’d play that market but looking at all our partners odds - the best price at the time of writing is +480 with William Hill, Unibet and SugarHouse. I’m still tempted but he’s the shortest priced player to score for Austria. No fewer than ten Italians have shorter odds. This is how much the Sportsbooks fancy Italy to win and how strong that Italian defense has been, more on that later...

Trawling through the various markets and William Hill in NJ have what seems like a real rogue number in a market. At the time of writing they are offering +300 in the HT/FT market for Italy/Italy. That seems extremely long to me.

Italy haven’t conceded a goal since sometime around the Miracle on Ice - or so it seems anyway. Ten games without kicking off after an opposition player scored against them shows that their defense is mean. At +115 to win the game to nil with Resorts Casino in NJ, that seems like another decent value play.

Picks: I’ll take that Italy to win to nil at +115 and Italy/Italy in the HT/FT market at +300.