Portugal vs Armenia Prediction: Win to nil the obvious but sensible route

Portugal host Armenia in their group’s final World Cup qualifier with a kick-off time of 14:00 on Sunday, live on Prime Video.      

Fresh from a 7/4 winner from his sole bet on Ireland v Portugal on Thursday, Jamie Pacheco talks you through the team news, form, and his tips ahead of this one, where he’s got just the one wager once again as we go through his top Portugal vs Armenia Prediction...    

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Match Preview

Portugal  

Portugal put in what was probably their worst performance under Roberto Martinez so far.  

Where to start? The 2-0 against a side ranked 57 places below them? The endless passes in and around the box that never led anywhere? The sloppy defending for the first goal? The Ronaldo sending off that could see him banned for one or two games at the World Cup? The latter could be a blessing in disguise, but for the time being, it's a problem.  

Sure, every team is allowed one bad game, but it was the lack of penetration and ideas of how to score that will really concern Martinez.  

Still, that's his problem, not ours, and we were on the money in predicting Portugal would score fewer than two goals at 7/4 as we suspected they'd struggle against a physical side, and so it proved. As we know, they didn't get any.  

A win and they're through, but even a draw would most likely be enough to book their spot at the World Cup next year.  

Goncalo Ramos will probably come in for the suspended Ronaldo. Bruno Fernandes returns from a suspension of his own.  

Armenia  

Armenia will finish bottom and it's fair to say they've looked put out of their depth here.  

A 2-1 win over Ireland is the best they can show for their efforts this campaign, scoring just twice and conceding 10.   

At least they put in a gutsy performance against Hungary on Thursday night, losing just 1-0 to a good side. They almost matched Hungary for possession, but this will be a much tougher proposition, of course.  

For all of our World Cup Odds and Betting Markets - please head on over to that section on betfred.com  

Match Odds:

Portugal are 1/11 or an implied probability of 91.7% with Armenia 25/1 and the draw 9/1.  

There were good arguments for opposing Portugal in the previous game and we did so by shorting their goals but the same can't be said here.  

Armenia don't have the weapons that Ireland do and the former doesn't have home advantage to fall back on, so I really can't see anything other than a home win, and on we go.  

*You can check out all of our Portugal vs Armenia Odds on our betting market over on betfred.com

Win to nil  

How are Martinez and his players going to go about this? Job done by going 1-0 up and just making sure they're at the World Cup next year? Or go for a big win to remind everyone what a strong side this is, that they just had a bad day at the office in Dublin and that they can do just fine without Ronaldo?  

I honestly don't know. On the one hand, if they're as unimaginative in attack as they were on Thursday, they'll struggle to score more than one or two anyway, but if they score early, the floodgates could open. So, it could be 2-0 or 6-0, remembering that Portugal won this fixture 5-0 away from home back in September.  

So, it's worth keeping things simple. Armenia have scored just twice in five games, and they'd do pretty well to get one away to Portugal, so we have to think they won't.  

I don't often tip odds-on shots but in a game with so much uncertainty regarding Portugal's ambition, it's the best of a bad bunch at 4/6.  

Player to score anytime  

We dodged a bullet ahead of the Ireland game by not backing any Portugal players to score as the prices weren't attractive at all and the same could be said here.  

Ramos at 8/11, Felix at evens, Bruno Fernandes at evens? The latter at least has the advantage of being on penalty duty with Ronaldo not around but that's still a pretty short price. As ever, full-backs Diogo Dalot and Joao Cancelo are more appealing prices at 6/1 and Dalot certainly had a couple of decent chances on Thursday.  

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Jamie Pacheco Football P/L 2025 (Excludes 3-3-3 column):  

• Points Staked: 13.0 
• Points Returned: 17.68  
• Current P/L: +4.68   

Jamie Pacheco predominantly covers Cricket and European Football for us at Betfred Insights. You can check out his Football Betting Tips, along with those from the rest of the team, at our Football hub page...