Germany U21 vs Israel U21 Prediction: Will the Germans beat Israel?

According to bookmakers' betting odds, Germany is one of the top three favourites to win the European Youth Championships. Will the Germans beat Israel in the first game of the group stage to confirm their status?

It is no coincidence that the Germans are quoted as a potential winners of UEFA Euro 2023. The German youth team is the reigning European champion. The German team beat Portugal in the final in the 2021 tournament in Slovenia and Hungary. Moreover, this was the third consecutive championship for the youth team, where they reached the main match. In 2019 they lost to Spain, and in 2017, they beat the Spaniards. It should be noted that the Germans have three continental youth championships titles in their history.

There's not much point in mentioning Germany's squad for the upcoming tournament. There will be no outstanding players here, while almost every German in the starting eleven has already played dozens of games in the Bundesliga. The team will be led to UEFA Euro 2023 by Antonio Di Salvo, who has never been their head coach. But Di Salvo and his side had no trouble qualifying, winning 9 of their ten matches to finish in first place, with a 32:9 goal difference.

The Israelis will only be participating in their third European Championship. Also, the team made it to UEFA Euro 2023 only through knock-out rounds - Israel only closed the game on home soil against Ireland in the penalty shoot-out (1:1 away, 0:0 home).

Guy Lauzon leads the Israelis. He had already led Israel's youth national team at UEFA EURO 2013, where he failed to qualify from the group. The only two players in the squad for the upcoming championship who are not appearing in their homeland are Oscar Gloukh and Eden Karzev.

The German national team met with the Israelis in the UEFA EURO qualifiers, though they won twice. It was not without serious problems. On home soil, the Germans lost to Israel 1:2 and scored two goals after the 89th minute to make it 3:2. Germany won the away game 1:0 without having the game advantage during the meeting. Although we expect more similarity with the first high-scoring match than with the second leg, where the Germans played as pragmatically as possible, given the high tournament value of that match - Israel was only two points behind Germany with three rounds to go and even in the case of a draw had a good chance to compete for the top spot. So we have the right to expect productive football.