Two more groups concludes at the FIFA World Cup on Thursday and the first one to do so is Group F where one of the fancied runners is likely to exit the competition when the 2018 finalists Croatia take on the third placed team from that tournament in the shape of Belgium.
Croatia head into this match knowing that if they avoid defeat they will progress to the next stage of the competition and a win could see them winning the group. Only a win is likely to keep Belgium afloat barring something unforeseen in the other game.
Where to watch
The match will be shown live and in full on the BBC 1 channel in the UK with the build-up to the game beginning at 2.30pm and kick off taking place at 3pm.
Croatia
Croatia go into this match off the back of a laboured draw with Morocco, at least on the eye as the statistics don’t suggest that, and a very good win over Canada, whose comments in the lead up to the game fired the Croatians up. Statistics tell us that after two rounds of matches Croatia had the fifth most shots on target in the tournament which should have the beaten finalists of four years ago feeling fairly good about themselves.
The impressive thing about Croatia was that they played so well against Canada having fallen behind so we know they can play under pressure. It was important that a striker bagged a couple of goals for them in that win because they looked a little toothless in their opening match against Morocco. We know that the Croatia midfield are going to manage games and create chances but that doesn’t matter much if those chances aren’t converted so the win against Canada was very encouraging.
Belgium
If things have been encouraging for Croatia, it is hard to say the same about Belgium. There has been little in this campaign to be encouraged about as far as they are concerned. The only positive thing you can say about them is that they are still in the tournament and still in control of their own destiny. They know a win here will put them into the knockout stages whether they deserve it or not so when you consider they haven’t played well yet they can’t ask for anything more than that.
Clearly if Belgium are going to remain in the tournament then they need to put all the noise around them behind them and produce their best performance so far. There is no doubt they have the talent in their squad to win this match, whether it is aging or not, but having the talent and producing the goods is two different things. The positive is there can be no muddying of the minds now. They have to win the game and we’ve seen every other team in this position in this third round of games so far get the result they needed.
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Team News
Zlatko Dalic is expected to keep with the starting XI which beat Canada last time out even though one or two key players are a yellow card away from missing the round of 16 should they get there. Nicola Vlasic is likely to miss out once again.
Belgium will be forced into a change for this match because Amadou Onana is suspended after picking up bookings in the opening two matches of the campaign. Youri Tielemans is an obvious replacement for him. The gravity of the situation could see Romelu Lukaku starting.
Betting
I think the way this match is set up we are almost guaranteed goals in it. Belgium have to score in this match else they are out of the tournament and while there probably are some rifts in the ranks and things like that, there are also egos in this team that are so big they won’t accept bombing out early. If Belgium take the lead then this one could explode into life because Croatia have to then score to stay in the competition unless Canada do them a turn.
Although they don’t have to score to begin with in this match, there are two reasons why Croatia will probably look to do so. The first of those is because their defence isn’t the most watertight going around and relying on it to keep a talented Belgium side at bay for 90 minutes is a risky call. The other reason is because by winning the game they could win the group and potentially dodge Spain the last 16. If Croatia score first Belgium will have to take the handbrake off and put the car straight into turbo so this has the potential for goals and so I’m happy to take over 2.25 goals in this one.
Tips
Back Over 2.25 goals for a 3/10 stake at 1.86 with Bet365
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