World Cup Qualifying Betting Tips and Odds
International football turns it’s attention to the FIFA World Cup in Russia 2018, as the qualifiers begin across Europe this weekend. The qualification process will surely answer many questions like can Roberto Martinez and Thierry Henry help a talented Belgium unearth their full potential, will The Netherlands scale the heights again that we have so often seen in the past, can the Germans march on and defend their crown and can Sam Allardyce end years of English heartbreak.
Throughout the qualifiers leading football journalist Jonathan Wilson will be giving his top betting tips around Betsafe’s enhanced Treble picks begining this weekend with Poland, England and Sweden all to win at a massive 12/1!
Let Betsafe guide you into a successful World Cup weekend of betting with expert tips from Jonathan Wilson.
PRICE BOOST 12/1
England, Sweden and Poland all to win at 12/1!
Kazakhstan v Poland
Poland had a curious Euros. In some ways they were excellent. They played tactically smart football through the group phase, beating Northern Ireland and Ukraine and drawing with Germany but then, after dominating the first half of their last 16 game against Switzerland, they seemed to freeze, letting the Swiss back into it and winning only on penalties before a frustrating quarter-final and penalty shoot-out defeat to Portugal. It was good, their best tournament in 30 years, and yet there was a sense it could have been better.
Most aggravating was the failure of Robert Lewandowski and Arkadiusz Milik, who had been so impressive at times in qualifying, to click. Both have started the season well, though, Milik scoring twice on his first start for Napoli in their 4-2 win over AC Milan, while Lewandowski got a hat-trick Bayern’s 6-0 win over Werder Bremen on the opening day of the Bundesliga season.
That becomes relevant given the likelihood that Poland will dominate the game. Kazakhstan’s form has picked up of late: they won their last European Championship qualifier away to Latvia and have beaten China and Azerbaijan in friendlies this year, but they’ve also lost to Kyrgyzstan.
They were organised enough never to be really hammered in Euro qualifying so, given how Adam Nawalka likes his sides to dominate midfield, this feels like a game in which Poland will have a lot of the ball and it’s essentially a question of how many goals they score.
Where then is the value? Backing Poland to win to nil is 11/10, which makes a certain sense given how solid Poland looked during the Euros and Kazakhstan’s lack of firepower, but it may be worth stretching that slightly, giving Kazakhstan a 1-0 start and backing Poland to win at 3/2.
Slovakia v England
England’s 0-0 draw against Slovakia at the Euros will go down as the game in which Roy Hodgson’s tinkering, making six changes to the side that had beaten Wales, cost his side a win and top spot in the group, setting them on their doomed course towards Iceland. Yet the truth is that England had 29 shots to 2 in that game: there was a lack of fluency and imagination, it’s true, but it’s also the case that they were wholly dominant and in most circumstance would have won.
Jan Kozak is a wily coach and, in Marek Hamsik, Slovakia have a player of genuine star quality, but the tendency in recent years has been to prioritise defensive resolve. The defeat to Wales at the Euros, when they actually came out and played and were punished for it, suggested they are at their best when trying to frustrate opponents – something they did in Euro qualifying when playing a 4-6-0 formation and beating Spain. They conceded only eight goals in 10 qualifying games for the Euros.
It looks as though Sam Allardyce will opt for a 4-2-3-1 with Wayne Rooney behind a central striker.
There’s nothing revolutionary in that, but the selection of Michal Antonio is intriguing: it suggests Allardyce wants genuine width, and the West Ham man’s pace could test Tomas Hubocan, a converted centre-back, who will probably operate at left-back.
With Slovakia likely to sit back and look to absorb English pressure, its unlikely to be pretty, but England look decent value to win at 19/20.
That can probably be inflated by backing them to win to nil at 19/10 – even if that does mean placing faith in Joe Hart’s uncertain confidence and the central defensive pairing of John Stones and Gary Cahill that never entirely convinced in the summer.
Sweden v The Netherlands
Sweden were desperately poor at the Euros. They didn’t manage a shot on target by anybody other than Ireland’s Ciaran Clark until five minutes into their third game and they slipped away having taken a single, slightly fortunate, point, vying with Russia as the most disappointing side in the tournament. They’d qualified through a play-off having finished third in what had looked a taxing group, but given how Austria and Russia, the two sides who had finished ahead of them fared, it perhaps hadn’t been as hard as it had first appeared.
Janne Andersson, who led IFK Norrkoping to a surprise league title last season, had been named as Erik Hamren’s successor before the Euros. His approach at Norrkoping was expansive – they averaged two goals a game last season while conceding slightly over one goal a game – but it’s not clear the extent to which he’ll be able to transfer that approach into a national team that remains essentially Zlatan Ibrahimovic plus ten others.
Sweden might have had a poor Euros, but at least they got there, which is more than can be said for the Netherlands.
This may not be the greatest generation of Dutch talent but it still should have been in France, a point that has been underlined by their last four friendly results: wins over England, Poland and Austria and a draw against Ireland, all away from home.
There is a slow sense of things coming together under Danny Blind, although whether that’s sufficient to justify them being favourites to win in Sweden at 21/20 is another matter.
Given the Netherlands’ recent defensive issues – just two clean sheets in their last 14 games, and Andersson’s likely approach, both teams to score at 10/11 may be the way to go.
Bets Of The Rest
The European champions, Portugal, go to Switzerland for an intriguing fixture in which the home side are marginal favourites, at 29/20 as opposed to 19/10. Given how Portugal, who will be without Cristiano Ronaldo, played in winning the Euros and given Switzerland’s enduring dourness (despite a raft of gifted attacking players), it’s no great surprise that under-2.5 goals is heavily favoured, but the 3/2 available on more than 2.5 is tempting in part because it’s so long, but also because Fernando Santos will not have had as much time to organise his team as he did in France and they were distinctly shaky at the back in the group stage.
France, after the disappointment of that final, go to Belarus and are strong favourites at 1/3.
Although Didier Deschamps never found a way of getting the best out of his forwards at the Euros, winning by two goals should be comfortably within their capabilities, so backing them to win after giving Belarus a 1-0 start at 23/20 makes sense.
Germany travel to Norway after a slightly chastening Euros in which they never quite got the balance right.
Attacking against a side likely to be set up to contain them is a strength though, so backing them to win having given Norway a goal start at 4/3 seems reasonable.
Serbia always flatter to deceive, and much depends on their mood, but this is a good, creative young squad and at 19/20 they’re good value to beat Ireland at home. Iceland may suffer a regression to the mean but their performances in France were no one-off; rather they were the culmination of four years of steady improvement. In that regard, it’s slightly surprising that they can be backed with a goal start to win away to Ukraine at 11/10.
About Jonathan Wilson
Jonathan Wilson is one of the United Kingdom’s most respected football journalists writing for some of the top news outlets like the Guardian
