Two more round of 16 matches take place at the FIFA World Cup on Sunday and two European sides get the action underway when the defending champions France continue their title defence against Poland in Doha.
France were one of the few sides who had qualified after two matches in their group phase and had an easy time of it in their last game. Poland were the exact opposite. At one stage yellow cards were putting them through to this knockout match.
Where to watch
The match will be shown live and in full on the BBC 1 channel in the UK. The build-up to this one begins at 2.30pm with the kick off coming at 3pm.
France
You would imagine that France have done things the right way in their group. They got their opening two matches won and had qualified before they set foot onto the pitch in their third game. That allowed them to rest near enough their entire starting XI. Usually that might not play quite as much of a part as it might do here because France played their final match on Wednesday afternoon and compete again just four days later, which is a fairly tough ask.
That means they will have a fully rested team at their disposal here, one which we saw in those two matches that they took seriously is a pretty fearsome force. It will also have given Didier Deschamps plenty of time to work on getting a better defensive unit constructed, although with the quality that ‘Les Bleus’ have in forward areas they could just adopt the strategy that they are just going to outscore teams, although we know the World Cup winning coach of four years ago is more pragmatic than that.
Poland
Poland were involved in a real rollercoaster of a group. It looked like they had done enough to make it through after two matches but they only had their destiny in their own hands rather than had actually confirmed as making it through. Their final match day turned into an absolute epic where they had to battle right until the end so they certainly didn’t have the luxury of having been able to rest all of their players.
To be fair, their coach has made plenty of changes as they navigated the group stage but if we are being honest, Poland haven’t really looked anything special in the tournament to date. They look like they lack cohesion in attacking areas and while they set up pragmatically they don’t actually contain many teams. Mexico had chances against them, Saudi Arabia created a number and Argentina were almost toying with them. It will be interesting to see if Poland are prepared to go down in a gun fight and chance winning or just play right into the French hands.
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Team News
Didier Deschamps is expected to recall all of his starters after they sat out against Tunisia in their last game. The one decision he may have to make is whether to start with Raphael Varane or Ibrahima Konate at the heart of the defence.
Poland have reported a fully fit squad to choose from for this match but you would imagine they are likely to make one or two changes along the line just to freshen up a team that was only in action as recently as Wednesday night.
Betting
I don’t see past a France victory here. It could be said that their defence can be got at but Poland have shown little intention in their opening three matches that even if it is gettable I’m not convinced they are the team to get at it. Even if they do, I expect France to have plenty of joy going the other way so I fancy the defending champions can move into the quarter final with a fair bit in hand here, especially with Kylian Mbappe having his sights firmly on the Golden Boot.
If this was France against an Asian or African side the Asian lines might have been nearer two here but I really don’t think Poland are much better than that level. This is all about France, particularly as they are going to go in here with much the fresher team, not to mention the better team. In their last two matches against Saudi Arabia and Argentina, Poland have coughed up xGA totals of 2.25 and 3.72 and if they give that level of chances to this France team they are going to get severely beaten. I’ve seen nothing to suggest that trend won’t continue so it is France -1.5 for me here.
Tips
Back France (-1.5AH) to beat Poland for a 3/10 stake at 2.04 with Bet365
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