Portugal v Slovenia Prediction: 2-1 Portugal a lively runner at 8/1

It’s Portugal v Slovenia on Monday, July 1 (20:00, BBC One) with an inconsistent Portugal side looking to progress against an opponent that is yet to taste defeat at this Euros.

Portugal-based James Pacheco has picks from the correct score market and a Bet Builder at big odds so let’s see if he can land a big winner as he takes us through his Portugal vs Slovenia Predictions...

Portugal

It’s been an interesting tournament for Portugal. A hard-fought win over Czechia was followed by a near-flawless display against Turkey in a 3-0 win and after that came one of the shocks of the tournament, a 2-0 defeat to Georgia. The latter needs to be put into context: only keeper Diogo Costa and Cristiano Ronaldo featured from the XI who had played the first two matches.

But still. Even a second-string XI should have been too good for Georgia and what this suggests that maybe their bench isn’t quite as good as we thought it might be.

It’s never good to come into a knockout match on the back of a defeat but in reality, that result didn’t really matter as they’d already done the hard work to top the group before it.

My guess is Roberto Martinez will play a very similar team to the one that beat Czechia with the one possible change being Rafael Leao missing out. He wasn’t great in either of their first two matches and got booked twice for diving, missing the third game through suspension. Diogo Jota or Joao Felix could come in for him.

Possible XI: Costa, Cancelo, Pepe, Dias, Mendes, Dalot, Bernardo Silva, Bruno Fernandes, Vitinha, Leao/Jota, Ronaldo,

Slovenia

Slovenia did it the hard way, finishing in third-place in England’s group and qualifying as one of the best third-placed sides.

The bad news is they didn’t win a single game, the good news being they didn’t lose one, either.

1-1 draws with Denmark and Serbia were followed by a goalless one against England despite going into the match as considerable underdogs.

There are no real stars in this side as such but keeper Jan Oblak has been one of the best in the world for the best part of a decade. He could be pretty busy here.

Possible XI: Oblak, Karnicnik, Bijol, Janza, Drkusic, Elsnik, Mlakar, Stojanovic, Cerin, Sporar, Sesko.

Portgual vs Slovenia Odds & Correct Score Prediction

Slovenia, as we know, have drawn three. Portugal were good first up, excellent in the second match and extremely poor in the third though of course, that was far from being their best XI against Georgia.

Given Slovenia come under the ’tough to beat’ category and avoided defeat against three decent sides in Serbia, Denmark and England the 18/5 on the draw looks a bit more attractive than the 1/3 on Portugal.

On the correct score market, 1-0 and 2-0 Portugal are the justified joint- favourites at 9/2 but I think it might be worth going with a Slovenia goal here. They managed one against Serbia and Denmark and prior to that goalless draw with England- a good result in its own right whatever you may say about England(!) – they’d scored in 14 consecutive matches which included a shock win over Portugal by 2-0 back in March, albeit a friendly.

So 2-1 at 8/1 it is.

PickyourPunt Popular Bet Builders

This oner requires a bit of a leap of faith but it might be worth it: both teams to score + both teams 4+ corners and both teams 20+ booking points.

Both teams to score looks like it could well land given Slovenia’s strong scoring record and the fact Portugal conceded three times in their games so far.

Two bookings each should be fine too. Slovenia got exactly two bookings in each of their three games so far; Portugal got two, two and three, and Daniele Orsato is in charge here, averaging almost five yellows a game this season and dishing out nine red cards in his 32 games in charge this season.

Finally, the corners. Portugal got 13 against Czechia, just one against Turkey despite that 3-0 win and then 11 against Georgia, so we can be pretty confident they get their four. Slovenia managed four or more in three of their last four matches, so should come pretty close. Let’s hope so.

Goalscorers

With all those corners Portugal seem to be getting, you might think one of the centre-backs could be in business sooner or later. Ruben Dias, Nuno Mendes and Pepe are 11/1, 12/1 and 14/1 respectively to score anytime.

You can get all the latest betting prices for all the matches in this tournament on our Euro 2024 Odds page over on betfred.com

Betfred Match Offers:

Goal Fever

Throughout Euro 2024, Betfred are offering all customers a 25% cash bonus if your selected team in the Match Result market wins by 3+ Goals on selected matches. Portugal vs Slovenia is part of this promotion, so if you back and team and they win by three or more, you would see 25% added to your winnings on that bet.

Extra Time Rules

Throughout the knock-out stages of Euro 2024, Betfred are paying out on anytime goalscorer and player cards markets for the full 120 minutes, not just the 90, should a match go to Extra Time.

Jamie Pacheco primarily covers Cricket and Portuguese football for us here at Betfred Insights and he'll be following the Portuguese national side throughout the Euro's for us. You can check out his and all the other Football Betting Tips from our writing staff on our main Football hub page.