Portugal vs Ireland Prediction: Ronaldo and Mendes to contribute to an easy Portugal win

Portugal host the Republic of Ireland in their group’s third World Cup qualifier with a kick-off time of 19:45 on Saturday night.  Amazon Prime PPV will be the streaming platform to watch this match in the UK.

Jamie Pacheco talks you through the team news, form and his tips ahead of this one, made up of a couple of player prop kicks. Spoiler alert: one of them revolves around Cristiano Ronaldo as he takes us through his Portugal vs Ireland Predictions...

Match Preview

Portugal  

These are good times to be a Portugal fan. Fresh from winning the Nations League for a second time in the summer, the only side to have won it twice, they then started this qualification campaign in style, thrashing Armenia 5-0 away. And then showed they can also be scrappy and resilient rather than just being good frontrunners, when beating Hungary 3-2 in an entertaining match, thanks to a late João Cancelo goal.  

But ironically, it may not be the best time to be a Portugal player. Sure, if you're Diogo Costa, Ruben Dias, Nuno Mendes or Cristiano Ronaldo you'll almost always start, but the other seven places are very much up for grabs. It's a nice problem for Roberto Martinez to have when he can leave out the likes of Bernardo Silva, Ruben Neves or Renato Veiga.   

Ronaldo has recently been starting every match for Portugal but is usually hooked after about 55-60 minutes and that seems to be the correct compromise Portugal fans have been crying out for across the last few years.  

Pedro Neto has been in excellent form for Chelsea of late so should start here. Rafael Leao has been recalled after injury so it may be a straight choice between him and João Félix.   

Republic of Ireland  

It's hard to put your finger on what has gone so badly wrong for Ireland over the past few years that they're so low in the rankings and have developed a bad habit of not qualifying for major tournaments of late. At a time when it's easier to qualify for them than ever, as the number of teams in each one just keeps on increasing.  

In my opinion, I'll put it down to the most obvious explanation of all: an obvious lack of quality in terms of the players at the manager's disposal though again, quite why that is, isn't so clear. Gone are the days when at least seven or eight of the players in the starting line-up were regular starters at Premier League cubs.  

These days the only real quality comes in the form of keeper Caoimhin Kelleher and Roma-based striker Evan Ferguson.  

A draw against Hungary followed by a defeat against Armenia in the qualification campaign so far tells you all you need to know.  

Match Odds:

Portugal are 1-7 (implied probability of 87.5%) with Ireland 18/1 (5.3%) and the draw 13/2 (13.3%).  

Looking at the head-to-head (just out of interest) and we can see that Portugal won nine times, drew three and lost four. 

The last four (two World cup qualifiers, two friendlies) resulted in Portugal wins by 3-0, 2-1 and 5-1, with a 0-0 in there as well, a Qualifier back in 2021.  

So, it's certainly been all Portugal of late. A win to nil at 7/10 is pretty likely given Portugal are strong at the back and that Ireland don't have much going forward, but the 7/10 is short enough.  

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

Player Props  

Thee's no doubting Portugal should win so it's more of a case of: how many can they score? Well, if you think it's more than 3.5, you can get a decent-looking 2/1 on the home team goals market.  

I'll leave that alone, but I think they'll get at least three, and I am going with two different Player props at decent prices that reflect that.  

1/2 on Ronaldo scoring isn't a price to get stuck into, but what about the 3/1 he scores a header? There's some debate about the exact percentage of his goals that have been headers, but the general consensus is that it's about 15%, which equates to approximately 119 headers he's scored in his career. He's one of the very best in the air, ever. And not only did he score two against Ireland when they last beat them 3-0, but in that 2-1 win over Ireland in 2021 he had also scored two: both headers! Go to the 'Player scores a header' market for that 13/2.  

Next up, I like the 16/5 that Nuno Mendes gets an assist. Few full backs in world football get forward as much as he does and he had six assists in the last edition of the Nations League alone! So, he may well be in business here, especially given he'll have the better of Manning/Coleman in terms of pace down that left flank.

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

• Points Staked: 7.5
• Points Returned: 9.35
• Current P/L: +1.85

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...