Australia – Saudi Arabia: 9th June 2017

Australia is undoubtedly the favorite of this defeat, as betting agencies give it as value over its opponent, also benefiting from the advantage of its own land, where supporters could play a very important role. Australians have experience in qualifying for the world championships, playing four tournaments in their history, participating in the last three, achieving the best performance in 2006, when they reached the optimum stage. The national team prepared by Ange Postecoglou is looking to go to the Russian tournament, with very high chances, being at the third place in the B group of preliminaries, being at three points the places that go directly to the group stage. Australia comes after a series of seven games without failure, but it should be mentioned that during this time only three victories succeeded.

Saudi Arabia on the other side is ranked second in the bookmakers, a fact that does not surprise anyone, but still faces a higher-rated team, being also disadvantaged by the fact that it will evolve away. Like their opponents, the “green greens” participated in four world championships, the last time in 2006, at the German tournament. Bert van Marwijk’s national team is looking to return to the world’s most important competition after a break of more than a decade, having a good chance, currently occupying the second place in the B group of preliminaries, the last one leading directly to the tournament from Russia. Saudi Arabia comes after four non-defeat matches, winning three victories, draws once.

Saudi Arabia has shown well in these preliminaries, but Australia is a better-ranked team with a more valuable batch, and as today also benefit from the advantage of their own field, I expect to win the easy victory, so I’m counting on Score minimum two goals.