Cyprus host Latvia at 17:00 UK on Monday 5 October at the Neo GSP in Nicosia, a week after the two drew 0-0 in Riga.
Latvia have managed one shot on target a game in this competition, which is fifty-second of all 54 teams. Cyprus have kept two clean sheets from three. The goalless draw between them was not an accident.
Cyprus beat Armenia 2-0 on Friday, drew 0-0 in Latvia before it and lost 2-1 in Montenegro to open the group. Two clean sheets from three puts them joint second of 54 for clean sheet rate and twelfth for goals conceded at 0.67 a game. They also carry an odd pair of numbers: fifty-first of 54 for fouls at 8.33 a game and seventh for cards at three. Few fouls, plenty of bookings.
Latvia lost 1-2 at home to Montenegro on Friday, drew 0-0 with Cyprus and lost 2-0 in Armenia. One goal in three, forty-fifth of 54 for scoring, and the shot volume behind it is the thinnest part: one shot on target a game, fifty-second of 54. They are forty-seventh for cards at one a game. Team sheets are not confirmed.
Match markets are not yet priced for this fixture, so there is no model-versus-price comparison to make here. What the competition rankings give instead is a fairly blunt picture.
Cyprus concede 0.67 goals a game against Latvia's 1.33, and score one a game against Latvia's 0.33. On shots on target the gap is 4.33 against one. A third of each side's matches have gone over 2.5 goals and a third have seen goals at both ends, which are the twenty-ninth and twenty-fifth rates of 54 teams and sit a little below the middle.
Their one meeting in this window produced no goals at all. Across the competition as a whole, both teams score in 46.6 per cent of Nations League matches against 52.2 per cent in the English leagues, and a fixture with a side this short of shots on target is the kind that pulls that number down rather than up.
See the live Statz numbers for this fixture.
The referee for this fixture has not been published in our data yet, so there is no card or foul average to read from.
The priced player lines are all on the home side, and they are short. Ioannis Pittas has hit the target in all five of his last five, nine in total at 1.8 a game, priced 1.22, and in three straight. Marcus Edwards has hit the target in three straight and had two or more shots in three straight.
In the foul markets, Grigoris Kastanos has committed a foul in all five of his last five at 1.29 and made two or more tackles in three straight, and Hector Kyprianou has fouled in four of five at 1.22. For a side ranked fifty-first of 54 for team fouls, that is a lot concentrated in two players.
Giorgos Malekkidis has made two or more tackles in three straight.
See the live Statz numbers for this fixture.
Cyprus are at home, have kept two clean sheets from three and face a side managing one shot on target a game. On the rankings there is not much of an argument against them.
The read is a low-scoring home win, with the shot and foul lines on the Cypriot side carrying more of the fixture than the result market, which is not priced here yet in any case. The 0-0 in Riga a week ago is the better guide than either side's league position.
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