Russia to Win in a Goal Shy Opening Match
It’s finally time for the opening match of this year’s 2018 World Cup in Russia! Host nation Russia meet Saudi Arabia in a highly anticipated match with a public who’ve waited four long years for this day. The Russian public will only accept a win and convincingly at that.
As host nation, Russia didn’t need to go through the struggles and challenges of a qualifying campaign. To prepare themselves they’ve instead focused on a number of challenging friendly matches where they’ve looked altogether unconvincing, albeit they had chosen to face heavyweights such as Argentina, Spain, Brazil and France.
Then came Russia’s final training match against Turkey, a team who failed to qualify for this year’s World Cup. The Russian’s wanted to see their national team impress, to see their team go for the jugular. Instead, the match ended 1-1 and left the country bitterly disappointed.
They have a good enough team to fight for one of the two places to take them through to the knockout stage
Right now the Russians haven’t wanted to draw many conclusions from their friendly matches against some of the world’s elite teams, but still the fact that they haven’t been able to clock up a good result in their preparations for a World Cup where they’ll be centre stage doesn’t bring much confidence.
All that being said, I do think they have a good enough team to fight for one of the two places in their group in order to take them through to the knockout stage. In order to achieve that though they’ll have to improve their performances, and it hinges on them winning the first match against Saudi Arabia.
Everyone involved in Russia’s camp are fully focused on making a good start to the tournament
For the most part, Russia’s squad is made up of players from their domestic league. The Russian Premier League is a league which consistently delivers teams to the Champions League. Russia’s coach Stanislav Cherchesov has had a long time now to prepare his team for this match, and I believe everyone involved in Russia’s camp are fully focused on making a good start to the tournament.
Saudi Arabia
The Saudis ensured they qualified for the World Cup immediately when they finished second in their group behind Japan. The fact that they managed to pinch second place is no mean feat when you consider that they finished in front of World Cup qualifying veterans Australia, not to mention the United Arab Emirates, Iraq and Thailand.
They managed to clinch second spot at the last hurdle
Saudi Arabia should be praised for their performance in the final game against group leaders Japan. They managed to clinch second spot at the last hurdle and went through ahead of Australia on goal difference.
But now it’s time for a fresh challenge, a tougher challenge, and it’s hard to see them making it through to the knockout stages despite them being placed in the weakest group in the tournament. In my eyes, Saudi Arabia are one of the worst teams in this year’s competition and have little chance of making it to the knockouts. The majority of their players still play in their domestic league, and the quality of that league is no comparison with Russia.
Betting Tip
On Thursday the World Cup finally gets underway and the expectations for this year’s competition are huge. The opening match is being played between host nation Russia and the worst ranked team of the competition in Saudi Arabia. But my guess is we’re going to see a highly-anticipated start to the tournament, with two teams who have a hard nerve - especially in Russia who have immense pressure on them to win.
After the match has started you’ll see the difference in class between these two teams and Russia will begin to take advantage of that gulf in quality. Having said that, I don’t think we’ll be seeing a walkover goalfest on Thursday. I’m sure there won’t be many goals to see. That’s why I’m betting on Russia to win with under 3.5 goals in the match on odds at 10/11 with Betway.
