Good Morning ☀️,

It’s Lucas here, your Chief Predictions Officer at What Are the Odds?

It’s Lucas here, your Chief Predictions Officer at What Are the Odds?

The weekend might be over. But that doesn’t mean things are quiet. Today, we’ve got a packed lineup of matches to look at, including the continuation of round 4 in the UEFA Nations League.

Oh, and we almost forgot to mention — Lionel Messi’s playing his farewell game this week.

What’s ahead in today’s edition of What Are the Odds?:

• The most important match schedules for the first half of this week. 🗓️

• Our top three picks from today’s lineup of matches (including Messi’s farewell game). ✅

Sharing is caring: Help grow the team and show your friends you care — send them this link https://whataretheodds.io/subscribe

Continuing the action from the weekend, we’ve got another batch of matches across the Cup of Nations, Nations League, and International Friendlies. (Note: all dates and times are in CEST)

🌍 Cup of Nations Qualifications

Tuesday 06 October

• 21:00 — Angola vs Malawi

🌍 International Friendlies

Monday 05 October

• 12:30 — Japan vs New Zealand

• 20:45 — Liechtenstein vs Gibraltar

Tuesday 06 October

• 13:00 — South Korea vs Uzbekistan

• 16:00 — India vs Uruguay

• 18:00 — Russia vs Nigeria

• 19:00 — Jordan vs Venezuela

Wednesday 07 October

• 01:00 — Argentina vs Benin

• 02:00 — USA vs Canada

🇪🇺 UEFA Nations League

Monday 05 October

• 18:00 — Cyprus vs Latvia

• 20:45 — Bosnia-Herzegovina vs Poland

• 20:45 — France vs Belgium

• 20:45 — Italy vs Turkey

• 20:45 — Montenegro vs Armenia

• 20:45 — Northern Ireland vs Georgia

• 20:45 — Romania vs Sweden

• 20:45 — Ukraine vs Hungary

Tuesday 06 October

• 16:00 — Kazakhstan vs Faroe Islands

• 20:45 — Albania vs San Marino

• 20:45 — Belarus vs Finland

• 20:45 — Croatia vs Spain

• 20:45 — England vs Czech Republic

• 20:45 — Estonia vs Iceland

• 20:45 — Luxembourg vs Bulgaria

• 20:45 — Moldova vs Slovakia

• 20:45 — Scotland vs Slovenia

• 20:45 — Switzerland vs North Macedonia

Want to get the best odds on these matches?

⚽ Albania vs San Marino
🏟️ UEFA Nations League (Round 4)
📅 Tuesday 06 October; 20:45 (CEST)

• Top 3 Stats:

  • San Marino has scored 0 goals and conceded 14 in its 3 Nations League games.

  • Albania only averaged 0.6 goals per game in their last 5 home matches and failed to score in 3 of them.

  • Albania has won all 5 head-to-heads in this fixture with an aggregate score of 16-0.

• CXSports says: The stats above already tell you how this one’s going to play out. Albania win this, and San Marino probably doesn’t even score a goal. The only question is margin. So let’s takes closer look at each side.
  
  The most obvious thing that stands out here is San Marino’s offensive stats. Or rather, the total lack of them. In their three Nations League games this autumn they’ve scored zero goals. And in past head-to-heads in this fixture, it’s the same thing — 0 goals scored. Meanwhile, they’ve conceded 14 in their three Nations League games, and 16 in 5 previous head-to-heads against Albania. To put that extremely mildly, that’s miserable. And not that we really need to bash San Marino any more, but for the sake of completeness we pulled up their last 20 games across all competitions. The result: 17 losses, 2 draws, and a single victory almost 2 years ago. In short, they’ve got no chance.
  
  So now for the real question — how many goals will Albania  score. And honestly, we don’t really know. One thing we do know is that Albania’s record at home isn’t exactly anything worth writing home about (not that you need to write home if you’re already at home…). In their last three home games, they’ve only scored two goals (while conceding two). And those two goals came in a single match against Belarus. But that match is at least somewhat helpful here, because is does at least suggest Albania can score against weaker opposition. And that means they’ll probably score relatively freely in this game given San Marino’s about as weak as an opponent comes (for comparison, Belarus is #95 in the FIFA rankings; San Marino’s 211).
  
  So where does that leave us? Well, we’re confident Albania wins this one without breaking a sweat. And as for the goals — let’s say they’ll score one more than they did against Belarus.

• Score prediction: 3-0 for Albania

Bet Option #1

• Bet: Albania Victory

• Odds Range: 1.01-1.04

Bet Option #2

• Bet: Both Teams to Score (No)

• Odds Range: 1.21-1.37

⚽ Angola vs Malawi
🏟️ African Cup of Nations Qualifications
📅 Tuesday 06 October; 21:00 (CEST)

• Top 3 Stats:

  • Angola’s undefeated in their last 5 home games. (2W/3D/1L)

  • Malawi’s only scored 2 goals in their last 5 away games and only won a single match. (1W/2D/2L)

  • 9 of the two teams’ combined last 12 matches had two goals or fewer.

• CXSports says: Angola’s likely to win this, but there’s a chance it might be narrow. And that’s because the one thing that’s really working for Angola here is their backline (combined with Malawi’s offense, which we’ll get to later). Over their last 6 matches they’ve conceded just 4 goals at an average 0.67 per game. However (and this is why it’s likely this game’s tight), that run includes two goalless draws and a 1-1 draw, with the only times they’ve really scored coming against weaker teams.
  
  As for Malawi’s offense, they’ve only scored 4 goals in their last 6, and only 2 in their last 5 away from home. And that run played against the likes of Lesotho and Ethiopia, which is softer competition than Angola, who’s currently #88 in the FIFA rankings (while Malawi’s back in 129th place).
  
  Of course, while Malawi’s not exactly great in offense, Angola isn’t really that much better. As we noted before, their recent run at home has included a couple of no-to-low-scoring draws. With that said, they can score against weaker opposition, with its recent run of home games including a 3-0 against Central African Republic and a 4-1 against Mozambique. So who knows — maybe they’ll manage something special here? Although, we can’t really be too sure, particularly given their new coach (appointed in April 2026) has cut several established forwards from the squad.
  
  So where does that leave us? Well, we trust Angola’s defense while not really knowing what to make of its attack. Meanwhile, we have no real hopes for Malawi’s offense, even if they can defend decently (the last time they conceded more than a single goal in a game was in last year’s World Cup qualifiers). As such, we’re calling this one in Malawi’s favor, but only by a single goal.

• Score prediction: 1-0 for Malawi

Bet Option #1

• Bet: Malawi Victory

• Odds Range: 1.26-1.43

Bet Option #2

• Bet: Both Teams to Score (No)

• Odds Range: 1.36-1.47

⚽ Argentina vs Benin
🏟️ International Friendlies
📅 Wednesday 07 October; 01:00 (CEST)

• Top 3 Stats:

  • Argentina won their last 5 home matches 21-1 on aggregate (4.2 goals vs 0.2 conceded on average).

  • Against the best sides they faced at the Africa Cup of Nations, Benin lost all 3 and scored just 1 while conceding 7.

  • Benin has scored in each of their last 6 matches, although the strongest opponent they faced in that run was Burkina Faso (#62 in the FIFA rankings).

• CXSports says: Argentina win this, and probably by a big margin. Just look at their numbers. At home, they’ve won their last 5 matches with an aggregate score of 21-1 (just in case you can’t do the math, that means why kept 4 clean sheets). Oh, and they reached the World Cup final in July. Meanwhile, Benin’s the sort of team who went to last winter’s Africa Cup of Nations and lost all three games against the continent’s better sides (DR Congo, Senegal and Egypt) while only scoring once and conceding seven.
  
  Of course, that’s not to say Benin’s completely hopeless. Their last 6 matches have at least produced some decent results — 3 wins, 2 draws, a single loss, and at least one goal scored in each of those games. However, those results probably won’t mean much here — the strongest opponent Benin has faced in recent times was Burkina Faso, who’s currently #62 in the FIFA rankings; precisely 60 places lower than Argentina.
  
  So, there’s not really much here that make this one hard to predict. About the only unknown here is what impact Lionel Messi will have. For those who missed it, this is his farewell match. And farewell matches have a bit of a habit of becoming a game that’s more about feeding one man the ball than deploying serious tactics. So that might take the edge off Argentina’s bite. Even more so if we see the usual parade of substitutions plus a little of the showboating these sorts of farewell games tend to produce. With that said, none of that’s likely to change the actual result here insofar as who actually wins, even if it makes the final scoreline slightly less predictable.

• Score prediction: 3-0 for Argentina

Bet Option #1

• Bet: Argentina Victory

• Odds Range: 1.01-1.05

Bet Option #2

• Bet: Both Teams to Score (No)

• Odds Range: 1.20-1.35

Make your sportsbook work for you!

That’s a wrap for today. But we’ll be back later in the week with plenty more fixtures and predictions.

Until then, enjoy the football.