Ukraine v Northern Ireland betting tips: Green and White Army chase quickfire double

Ukraine v Northern Ireland head-to-head

This will be the sixth meeting between Northern Ireland and Ukraine but the Green and White Army will have fond memories of their last fixture in June 2016.

It was in the group stages of Euro 2016 and Michael O’Neill’s men secured their first major tournament victory since 1982 with a 2-0 success in Lyon – which was also their only win against the Yellow and Blue.

Gareth McAuley headed them in front before a hailstorm briefly halted proceedings, with Niall McGinn crowning the triumph with the final kick of the game.

Northern Ireland made it the last 16 before falling to Wales while Ukraine were the first team to be eliminated from the tournament shortly after the defeat and will be desperate for a better showing this summer.

Previous XI

Ukraine: Trubin, Kryvtsov, Mykolenko, Tymchyk, Matvyenko, Stepanenko, Shaparenko, Marlos, Makarenko, Zubkov, Besedin.

Northern Ireland: Peacock-Farrell, McNair, Cathcart, McGinn, Jones, Dallas, Thompson, McCann, Whyte, Magennis.

Key battles

Andriy Shevchenko could rotate his Ukraine squad for the friendly as he fine-tunes his starting line-up ahead of the Group C opener against the Netherlands on June 13.

Marlos, despite being an elder statesmen in the squad at 32, will get his first taste of tournament football after the Brazilian-born forward gained Ukrainian citizenship in 2017 and has impressed during Shakhtar Donetsk’s run in the Champions League this season.

He is 11/2 to break the deadlock and 13/5 to find the net in the match, with West Ham’s Andriy Yarmolenko is joint favourite in both markets at 7/2 and 7/4 respectively.

Dynamo Kiev’s rising star Viktor Tsygankov will be a player to watch out for this summer, having netted five times in 24 caps for his country, and it is 4/1 for the 22-year-old to score and Ukraine to win.

Baraclough is likely to put out a similar line-up to the Malta clash, where he fielded a more experienced team from the start before blooding youngsters in the second half.

An option to support all the stats come together in the #YourCall market, where both teams to score, over 2.5 goals and either team to win is priced at 7/2.

View the latest Ukraine v Northern Ireland odds

All odds and markets correct as of date of publication