Home advantage to seal the deal?
Two of the World Cup's heavyweights go head to head in the round of 16 set in Normandy. France topped group A with ease and qualified having won all 3 games, Brazil finished 3rd but went through as one of the best 3rd placed teams in the tournament after winning 2 of 3 games and qualifying from the group of death.
France
With the World Cup on home turf the French have very high expectations to live up to and so far so good. They dominated their group beating the likes of Norway, Nigeria and South Korea with ease but are somewhat unfortunate to face a Brazil side that are better than their 3rd place finish suggests.
France possess a very potent attacking line-up and lived up to the hype during the group stage by scoring 7 times, whats more is that their defence was rock-solid only conceding a solitary goal, which happened to be an odd own-goal against a Norwegian side which are no pushovers at all.
All in all France will greatly fancy their chances of qualifying against an ageing Brazil side, especially with the whole nation backing them.
Brazil
Brazil qualified as one of the best group 3rds from the group of death containing Italy, Australia and Jamaica. They beat Jamaica with ease and edged past Italy with a goal to nil whilst losing an exciting game against Australia with 3-2.
Brazil's biggest issues are that they have an ageing squad and that their defence has been very shaky. The Brazilian's are not what they once were with likes of Marta and Cristiane being well into their thirties, age has unfortunately caught up with them and they are simply put not as good as they once were.
They may have qualified but were actually quite lucky in doing so, they beat Italy 1-0 during their last group game but should have conceded a couple of times, even Jamaica should have slotted a couple during the first game which is a bad omen when thinking about how dominant the French team has been.
Betting tip
Taking it all into consideration i cannot see anything but a French win here. Not only is the competition on home turf but their team is extremely strong. Due to the low odds on France i will be backing Over 2.5 goals at 19/25 with Bethard.
