Russia v Saudi Arabia

Thursday 14th June – 4pm

Match Odds: Russia 4/9, Draw 4/1, Saudi Arabia 11/1

Expected Penalty Takers: Russia – Aleksandr Sameov, Saudi Arabia Nawaf Al-Abed.

"Opening matches tend to be tight" is probably what you’ll hear most pundits rolling out in their opening statements, despite the fact that three of the last five have gone over 2.5 goals since 2006. Without too much offensively from either side however, this could well be a fairly dour affair and Group A hardly gets the juices going in all honesty.

Both sides are poor, and while Russia are surely better given home advantage, for a side in such disarray and calling upon players almost exclusively from a league in significant decline, I couldn’t possibly be getting excited about 4/9 prices, and I’d normally have no interest in the match betting here. Black Type however have gone after some early business, and their 4/1 quotes about this ending up a draw are surely too big. Saudi Arabia will set themselves up to be broken down, and a 0-0 or 1-1 wouldn’t be at all surprising.

This World Cup will be the first with a Video Assistant Referee, and despite all the (limited sample) evidence about VAR suggesting we should actually expect instances of Penalties to drop slightly over the World Cup, we reckon it could pay to take a small bet on Russia being awarded a penalty in the opening match. You wouldn’t want to be that referee who missed a home penalty in the opening match, so if any of the hosts’ strikers hit the deck in the area, it’s a fair bet that the referee is going to at least have a look. It’s only a small bet given its nothing much more than a hunch, but at 3/1, a Penalty in the match looks worth backing. That keeps the Saudis onside just in case, and also doesn’t matter if any such penalty was scored or missed.

2pts Russia v Saudi Arabia to be a draw at 4/1 (Blacktype)

1pt A penalty awarded in the match at 3/1 (PP or Boyles)

#Football