The World Cup soccer tournament has already progressed to the quarter-final stage.
Australia surprised many and left Denmark in the opening group. Next up is Argentina. PDO
The most interesting game of the day
Several quarter-final matches of the World Cup soccer tournament are marked by large differences in level between the teams in advance. The match with the biggest level difference is offered on Saturday at 9:00 p.m., when the second favorite of the Games, Argentina, who flew a little under the radar, meets the biggest surprise of the tournament, Australia.
Argentina is still marked by its 1-2 shock loss to Saudi Arabia in the opening round of the Games. However, by looking at the team’s statistics, we get closer to the truth about its strength or strengths. Even against the Saudis, Argentina’s setbacks came from places with a relatively small goal expectation (= similar situations do not score goals very often or with a high probability).
Against Poland and Mexico, Argentina kept the zeros. The most significant observation is related to the fact that so far Argentina has scored only three shots on goal in the three opening group matches of the tournament, and the expected goal score is only 0.8 goals in total – in an open game even as low as 0.3! In the case of Argentina, the facts do not quite correspond to the image that the Saudi Arabia match created in the mind. Argentina is a tight and extremely tight defensive group.
Australia, the color spot of the Games, made it to the quarter-finals after a 1-4 loss to France in the opening game with two clinical 1-0 fighting victories over Denmark and Tunisia. In both matches, Australia created only 0.6 goals in addition to one scored goal. However, you can’t really talk about luck in terms of the next place, because tight and self-sacrificing defending kept both the Jews and Tunisia in the matches with very few goals. In both matches, the Aussies didn’t give the opponent even one goal equal to what they expected.
In their final match against Poland in the group stage, Argentina upped their attacking pace compared to their opening two games. Everything Australia does, on the other hand, is based on good morale and straightforwardness. In terms of gameplay, Argentina will dominate the ball for the majority of the time and Australia will probably have to run down with their defense even lower than they would like. Argentina and Australia have not met each other in recent years, so no comparison of the strengths of their playing styles can be made.
As for the formations, neither of them has any injury or suspension concerns, but the coaches’ optimal teams will get on the field. As far as bets are concerned, Argentina’s most interesting choices apply by Enzo Fernandez a role in the midfield as well as another striker Lionel Messi’s and Angel Di Maria alongside. In the first two matches, Fernandez entered the game as a substitute, but was already involved in the opening match against Poland.
I believe the Benfica man will also open against Australia. Inter striker Lautaro Martinez came to these games full of strength, but the goal account has not been opened and the responsibility has decreased match by match. Now Lautaro’s place may be opened if he succeeded in scoring against Poland Julian Alvarez. Personally, I would definitely prefer a hungry Lautaro here.
However, regardless of the composition, I consider Argentina to be such a much stronger team that the battle for Australia will very likely have an honorable but defeated ending. Even Argentina’s crushing victory would not be a huge surprise here. And even though the Aussies are a good-spirited group, even a certain kind of excessive feeling of well-being cannot be counted out in this match. Based on these starting points, I think it is worth looking at betting choices from the direction of the favorite. Mathematically, the best betting choice is somewhat boring Argentina -1.5 with a coefficient of 1.62.
In terms of betting, it is also worth noting that Veikkaus offers clearly the highest odds on the market for low goals in the match (under 2.5 goals and under 3.0 goals) (2.16 and 1.69 at the time of writing the tip). I personally don’t like these, but those who believe in the market should still at least note the offers.
The best betting tip of the day
Holland – USA offers more attractive attractions than the Argentina-Australia match, although in this match starting at 17:00 the picture of the game is not quite as clear as in the evening match. Many small factors distort the odds here in the direction of Holland. Holland’s balance (2–1–0 goals 5–1) gives too good a picture of its performance in the matches of the first group. With the exception of Qatar, the team was a throwaway side in their matches, even though they won 2-0 with goals from Senegal in the closing moments and held on to a draw against Ecuador despite their 0.1-1.7-goal-expectation loss (!).
Holland has largely been PSV’s striker Cody Gakpon based on goals (a goal in each preliminary group match). How long can Gakpo play without special defensive attention? I bet not against USA anymore. However, the Netherlands has been quite quiet in the attacking direction, including Gakpoine, creating a total of only 0.8 goals against Ecuador and Senegal. Even the 1.6 created against Qatar cannot really be considered a miracle performance.
From a betting point of view, it is worth noting here that even the USA, which has the stamp of fast and attacking football, has scored very few goals in its matches. If the slightly special Iran match is left out of the calculations, only nine shots on goal were made in the USA’s other two matches. As for the open field game, the total expected goals for all three USA matches is also only 3.3 goals.
In this match, both the Netherlands and the USA will surely focus even more on their defensive play. Despite the expected nature of the match and the statistics of the preliminaries, Veikkaus still offers underdogs the highest odds on the market almost line by line. The most palatable tip is 1.87 offered for under 2.25 goals.
The 2.84 coefficient promised for the USA’s next place on the winning side is also interesting. The USA currently has no less than three key players question marks over their fitness for the quarterfinals. According to the latest information, however, the entire trio Christian Pulisic, Weston McKennie and Josh Sargent would already be in the process of opening on Saturday. I suspect that this information is not yet included in Veikkaus’ offer.
Games of the day:-
Total balance of the day’s games for the year: 65/111/106%
Every day Iltalehti chooses the most interesting game of the day and the best game destination of the day. You can always find them in the Betting and Ravit section.