Mexico v Wales

A bit of a late one this, with the match kicking off in the early hours of Tuesday morning over in California, but Mexico look a decent bet to take advantage of a Wales side missing several key players, looking to experiment, and of course, missing their talisman Gareth Bale.

Mexico will be making final preparations for thier trip to Russia, so should expect to be getting towards their best XI at this point and that could be bad news for Ryan Giggs' side.

Let's start with Bale, because his absence is massively significant. Since his debut for Wales in 2006, they have played 108 matches. Of those Bale has played 70, and has exactly a 50% win ratio (35 wins). Of the 38 he's missed, the win rate drops to just 23.6% (9 wins) - so less than half as likely to win! We knew he was good (he's worth on average, nearly half a goal), but that's an incredible number to say the least.

As far as team new goes, Joe Allen, Ben Woodburn and James Chester are all out, and Giggs has been talking about giving youth a chance in this one. Great news for the long term of course if you're Welsh, but in the shorter term, they could find too many uncomfortable elements in this trip, from an excellent Mexico side who know how to play without the ball just as well as with it, to the long trip over the Atlantic.

Sky Bet's 8/13 looks a solid investment in this one on the more local of the two sides.

1pt Mexico to beat Wales at 8/13 (SkyBet)

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