Brazil v Costa Rica

Costa Rica put in a decent performance against Serbia in the opening match - limiting the European side to just four efforts on target, and with a little more fortune they might have escaped with a point from the match. Meanwhile Brazil weren't able to capitalise on their superiority against Switzerland so will be keen to get a win under their belt.

Costa Rica set up in a pretty standard World Cup underdog 5-4-1 formation and looked reasonably well organised, so we should probably expect a similar sort of match as those we've seen between France v Australia (2-1), Argentina v Iceland (1-1), Croatia v Nigeria (2-0), Belgium v Panama (3-0), England v Tunisia (2-1), Portugal v Morocco (1-0), Uruguay v Saudi Arabia (1-0) and Spain v Iran (1-0).

The favourites have ultimately got the jobs done against the minnows, but only two of those matches have seen the (-1) handicap line covered and there is every chance of a similar type of scenario unfolding. With this in mind I'd probably be leaning towards Costa Rica +2 on the handicap market at around 6/5.

Neymar and Jesus are a formidable pairing when supported by Coutinho, but there have been plenty of other decent looking front lines who are yet to really find how to break down more savy set-ups than we've seen in the past.

We wont go into any more detail for now, but will revisit and extend this preview once the player carded markets are out, as we have a couple of Central American's on the short list in this one. Look out for the update on Thursday.

1pt Costa Rica (+2) to beat Brazil on the handicap at 6/5 (General)

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