The second part of the double header of action in the Copa America on Friday comes from New Jersey where Uruguay look to book their route out of Group C in the competition when they take on Bolivia.
Uruguay know that having won their opening match they will be through and in line to win the group should they win this match. Bolivia dropped their first game and need to win this one if they are to remain in the competition.
Where to watch
The match will be shown live and in full on the Premier Sports 1 channel in the UK with the coverage getting up and running at 1.50am ahead of the kick off at 2am.
Uruguay
When the draw was made for this tournament it always looked like Uruguay had landed themselves in the best part of it and having dispatched with Panama in the way that they did in the first game they are going to be into the quarter finals should they win this second match. We kind of saw everything we expected to see from Uruguay in that first game. They pressed high with unrelenting intensity, created a bunch of chances and put enough of them away to win easily.
You would hope if you are a Uruguay fan that they will be a bit more clinical in front of goal the longer the tournament goes on, although fans of the Premier League will know that isn’t a guarantee while Darwin Nunez is up front for them. Nevertheless, this is a team who are going to be relentless at winning the ball high up the pitch and against the less technical teams in the competition they are going to have a field day more often than not.
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Bolivia
The Bolivians were tamely beaten by the USA in their opening match. There were no real expectations on them going into the tournament but with them drawn in a section with USA and Panama there was a chance that if they had anything about them they could have a go at finishing second but we soon saw that they were a distance behind America in all departments and it would be incredible if they come out of this group now.
Sometimes these lesser sides can have the organisation defensively to frustrate teams even if they don’t have much about them moving forward but that wasn’t the case against USA as Bolivia conceded 20 shots, eight of which were on target and it all equated to a 2.34xG. In response, they offered up 0.13xG themselves so they have issues at both ends of the pitch. Usually in this position you would say that they have to come out and have a go here but doubts are strong over whether they have enough to do that.
Betting
I don’t think Bolivia are good enough to get anything from this game. If this was the opening game big handicaps might not be worth chancing because a damage limitation exercise might have been the order of the day but Bolivia aren’t in that position here unless they are just going to fade out of the tournament tamely. Even if they do exactly that, Uruguay look better than the United States to me so I would expect them to emulate the two goal USA win at the very least if not better it.
I think Panama looked better than this Bolivia side and they coughed up 19 shots, eight on target and a 1.68xG to Uruguay in the opening game and unlike Panama, I don’t see Bolivia having much of a goal threat here. The danger to the Asian line which is set at -1.75 is that Uruguay only need to win rather than run up the score but they have good depth off the bench, as we saw in the first game when Nicolas de la Cruz came on after an hour. Throw in the Bielsa chaos and the fact that Uruguay won 3-0 when these two met in World Cup qualifying and I thin Uruguay win and cover the handicap.
Tips
Back Uruguay (-1.75AH) to beat Bolivia for a 3/10 stake at 1.82 with William Hill
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