Croatia host England at 17:00 UK on Saturday 3 October at the Stadion HNK Rijeka. England have four points from two, Croatia three, and both have already played Spain.
Croatia are one of only two teams in all 54 to have gone over 2.5 goals with scoring at both ends in every match they have played in this competition. The model has the under seven points above its price here, which is the sharpest disagreement on the card.
England won 2-0 in the Czech Republic on Tuesday, their first clean sheet in some time, having lost 2-3 at home to Spain three days earlier. Their last five matches have produced 23 goals, thirteen scored and ten conceded, a run that includes a 4-6 win in France at the World Cup. In this window they are ninth of 54 for scoring at two a game and sixth for corners at six.
Croatia were beaten 4-1 in Spain on Tuesday after winning 2-1 in the Czech Republic. That pair of results leaves them fiftieth of 54 for goals conceded at 2.5 a game, and first of 54 for both the goals-at-both-ends and over-2.5 rates, because both of their matches cleared each line. They foul rarely, ranking forty-fourth at 9.5 a game. Team sheets are not confirmed.
The model projects 1.58 goals for England and 1.10 for Croatia, a combined 2.68, and it does not share the market's enthusiasm for the open game.
Over 2.5 goals is priced at 1.65, an implied 57.1 per cent; the model has it at 50.1. That seven-point gap is the biggest on any match-market selection this weekend, and it shows up on the other side as under 2.5 at 2.20. Both teams to score, No, at 2.20 carries a similar four and a half points. England to win is rated 48.3 against an implied 52.9, so the model is short of the price on the favourite as well as on the goals.
There is a reason to take that seriously beyond the arithmetic. Across 363 Nations League matches, both teams score in 46.6 per cent of games against 52.2 per cent in the English leagues. Croatia's two-from-two record is four games' worth of evidence between the pair of them, and the competition's base rate pulls hard the other way.
See the live Statz numbers for this fixture.
The referee is Sven Jablonski, averaging one yellow card and 23 fouls a game across two matches this season. That is a small sample and a light one, and it points away from the cards markets rather than towards them.
The shot lines are the firmer ground. Bukayo Saka has had two or more shots in all five of his last five, seventeen in total at 3.4 a game, priced 1.30. Luka Šučić has had a shot in all five of his, eleven at 2.2 a game, also 1.30.
In defence, Luka Vušković has made a tackle in all five of his last five at 1.33, and Josip Šutalo in four of five at 1.30. A Croatia back line that has conceded five in two is going to be busy.
See the live Statz numbers for this fixture.
England are the better side and the model has them a fraction short of the price rather than value at it. The genuinely interesting number is the total, where two games of Croatian basketball have moved the market well past what the model and the competition's own base rate support.
The read is an England win in a tighter game than the last fortnight advertises, with the under and the shot counts the more legible markets and the cards worth leaving alone under this referee.
18+. Please gamble responsibly - begambleaware.org. Odds correct at time of writing and subject to change. Statz publishes model projections, not advice.