Croatia vs Portugal Prediction: Second-string Portugal may still be too good at 13/10

It’s Croatia v Portugal on Monday, November 15 (19:45), a match between a Portugal side who have qualified for the quarter-finals and a Croatia team looking to salvage pride after a Friday night defeat in Scotland; the match is live on Youtube.

Portugal-based James Pacheco was 2/2 on Portugal’s last game against Poland with 15/8 and 5/6 winners and has a juicy 9/1 selection here, alongside a more modestly-priced 13/10 one.  Let’s see what the selections are.  

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Portugal

A game of two halves, as they used to say. Poland were arguably the better side in the first half, at least in terms of chances, but once Rafeal Leao got the opener in the second, it was the floodgates that opened and four more followed: a brace from Ronaldo courtesy of a penalty and a late overhead kick, a screamer from Bruno Fernandes and a well-taken finish from Pedro Neto.

But all that wouldn’t have helped us much without the late strike by D. Marzcuk, which gave us a ‘Portugal to win and both teams to score’ winner at 15/8. And that was quickly followed by a late booking for Portugal sub Nuno Tavares, the fifth of the match, to also give us a win on over 42.5 bookings points at 5/6.

Curiously, three of the yellows were to Portugal players despite the big win, backing up my assertion in the preview that their players are no angels. So a little bit of fortune with things going our way in the last few minutes but 2/2 on the night, nonetheless.

With qualification to the quarters secured, it would be pointless to carry on playing the same side rather than giving others a chance. But it’s almost anyone’s guess as to who might play given the riches in the squad.

Will Ronaldo take a breather or carry on starting in search of more goals? Let’s see.

Croatia

A poor result for Croatia in losing 1-0 in Scotland on Friday night. The stats suggest they were slightly unlucky, but they were always up against it once P. Sucic was sent off just before half-time.

They’re likely to still finish second in the group but it’s been a pretty average campaign so far with two wins, two losses and a draw for a side who always seem to be greater than the sum of their parts.

But this isn’t a vintage side. Man City duo J. Gvardiol and M. Kovacic, Luka Modric and A. Kramaric aside, there’s not a huge amount in terms of players who can make a difference and it’s a bit much to expect skipper Modric to still keep running games at 39.

Croatia vs Portugal Odds

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1pt Back Portugal to Win @ 11/8

Portugal are 11/8 (implied probability of 42.1%), with Croatia 2/1 (33.3%) and the draw 23/10 (30%).

A reminder that Portugal won 2-1 in the reverse fixture to make it six wins for them in nine encounters against the Croatians, with two draws and a sole Croatia win in a friendly just before the Euros.

Portugal’s price looks pretty big. I suppose the theory is that they’ll play a weakened side now they’ve qualified. They may well do so but that’s missing the point. Whoever comes in for the regular starters are still high-quality players featuring in Europe’s biggest leagues and they will be busting a gut to make an impression and play themselves into contention for the next match after this one.

Given Portugal have a near perfect record in this competition, a strong head-to-head record against Croatia and will field a high class XI whoever they play and it’s not worth overthinking it beyond that: they’re a good bet at the price.

0.5pts Back a Home Team Red card @ 8/1

We mentioned the red card brandished to P. Sucic against Scotland already. It was the second in two games for Croatia after keeper Dominic Livakovic had been dismissed in the game before against Poland. That makes them, alongside Switzerland and Gibraltar, the only side to have received two reds so far in the Nations League.

Ref on the night Davide Massa of Italy averages just under four yellows for the season across Champions League and Serie A matches and in his penultimate game in charge, sent off Isaak Toure of Udinese, so he’s not the most lenient of officials.

A red card for either side is a 5/1 chance and that gives you two bites of the cherry, of course. But Portugal players rarely get sent off despite picking up plenty of bookings and they’ll know that a dismissal here will rule them out of the next match through suspension, so certainly won’t want that to happen, particularly given this is effectively a dead rubber.

So I’d rather take the 8/1 just on Croatia getting a red, remembering they may be more carefree in terms of indiscipline given there is no next round for them.

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