Wednesday Night World Cup Football
World Cup Play offs
After going down 1-0 to the French in the first leg of their play off match, Ireland have it all to do in Paris tonight. We wouldn’t totally discount Ireland to win 13/2 (Coral), but it would be a tremendous upset if they did. Having a one goal advantage could dictate the way the French approach this game and we think they could be quite cautious. With that in mind the 8/15 (Paddypower) about a win for France might not be worth getting heavily involved in.
France dominated possession on Saturday and Ireland will need to hustle and harry a lot more tonight if they are to avoid the same thing happening again. Although France did have a lot of the play they didn’t create too many clear cut chances and didn’t look great defensively when put under pressure.
Ireland had a bit of success when they put crosses into the box and will have to create more chances tonight if they are to have any chance of winning the match. The draw 3/1 (Bet365) is our selection in this match.
We’re inclined to go for a low scoring draw and the under 2.5 goals 4/7 (Bet365) should bring a return on your stake. We’re predicting a 0-0 draw 15/2 (Skybet).
Portugal travel to Bosnia with the slenderest of leads but they are unbeaten in 11 games and with the home team failing to keep a clean sheet in their last six home games Portugal look to be favourites to go through. We think a bet on over 2.5 goals could be worth a small be at Evens (Coral).Our prediction is a win for Portugal 5/4 (Ladbrokes) with a 2-1 scoreline 9/1 (Bet365). Simao 9/1 (Skybet) is our first goalscorer selection.
Ukraine look to hold an advantage over Greece after their 0-0 draw in Athens, but it still looks 50-50 as to who might come out on top in this one. Ukraine are the bookies favourites at 4/5 (Coral) with Greece a big price at 4/1 (Bet365) to get the away win.
The five previous meetings between these two teams has only yielded six goals, so the under 2.5 goals at 1/2 (Paddypower) or even the under 1.5 goals bet at 6/4 (Paddypower) have to be considered. With no first half goals ever having been scored in the meetings between the teams a half tine result of draw 11/10 (Coral) looks a decent bet at the price.
We think this game might even go to penalties and so we’re predicting a draw 5/2 (Ladbrokes). The 1-1 6/1 (Skybet) or the 0-0 6/1 (Coral) are the two bets we’d be thinking about and if there is going to be a goal scored, then our money would be on Theofanis Gekas 9/1 (Bet365) to grab it.
A late goal for Slovenia on the plastic pitch in Moscow kept their hopes alive for this second leg match and although underdogs at 9/4 (Skybet) they are in with a decent chance of reaching the finals.
Slovenia have managed to keep clean sheets in their last three home games and have been scoring at the other end too. Although Russia are favourites 13/10 (Ladbrokes) they lost their only other match in Slovenia 2-1 and we think it’s worth taking the home team to cause a bit of an upset.
We’re predicting a win for Slovenia and are taking the 1-0 correct score 7/1 (Paddypower).