Football Bet of the Day: Wales to wave goodbye with a win

Wales v Albania
Saturday 17:00 (Live on S4C)

In Japan this morning, Kofu and Albirex Niigata reached 1-1 before half-time to give us an early win on our BTTS bet.

At Cardiff City Stadium this afternoon, Wales fans get a chance to wave off their boys before they head to Azerbaijan for a Euro opener against Switzerland. Wales themselves have a chance to erase the memory of that 3-0 midweek defeat to France with a positive result against some less starry opponents.

Wales haven't lost on home turf since 2018. They've gone W10-D2-L0 through friendlies, Euro qualifying, the Nations League and a single World Cup qualifier. The wins have been more grinding than resounding, though. The margin of victory has been a single goal in 8/10 and the Correct Score has been exactly 1-0 in 7/10. Across all 12 matches, the hosts have conceded a total of just three goals.

Albania are not going to the Euros, but they have put together a decent run of results recently. The Eagles are W6-D2-L2 home and away over the last 12 months, although quite a few of those games involved weaker teams than Wales. The wins have come against Belarus, Kosovo (twice), Kazakhstan, Andorra and San Marino. In the four other matches - versus Kazakhstan, England and Lithuania (twice) - they failed to score.

With England scoring only twice in Albania back in March, we wouldn't expect Wales to run away with this one. But the defence looks solid (when it's not playing with a man down against the world champions) and could earn them the win today. In the last five years, 6/9 of Albania's defeats outside Albania (all competitions and friendlies) have been 1-0 or 2-0. We're dutching those outcomes in the Correct Score market today. If either of them wins, the payout will be around 3.55/2.