World Cup: Post 2 (Who’s tight)

We’ve all got a mate who’s tight but which teams are tight at the back and not likely to concede goals? In European qualifying England and Spain were the meanest at the back only letting in 3 goals in 10 matches. There were several teams that let in 4 goals which were Portugal, Germany and Croatia.

This gets you looking at Group B because Portugal and Spain are in that group together but then it gets even tighter

Spain conceded 3 goals in 10 qualifying matches

Portugal conceded 4 goals in 10 qualifying matches

Morocco conceded 0 goals in 6 qualifying matches

Iran conceded 2 goals in 10 qualifying matches

So over 36 matches these teams let in a total of 9 goals. You have the lowest values in Europe, African and Asian qualifying all in the same group. Morocco had three 0-0 draws in their 6 qualifying matches and look like they are going to be pretty dour. We don’t know about their style of football but the results don’t look great. This could be a group for upsets with a couple of 1-0 wins.

Portugal’s qualification was pretty easy and 32 goals in a group with the Faroes, Latvia and Andorra isn’t that great and they also blew up in the 2014 tournament and failed to get out of the group. It wouldn’t be a surprise to see that happen again and with Spain’s managerial problems one of the big guns could not make it.

We’ll be looking to back both Morocco and Iran to qualify to small stakes.

World Cup: Post 1 (Who concedes)

The World Cup has expanded to 32 teams to doesn’t that mean we should find some poorer teams. Who could be the ones to let in a lot of goals and they could well help with top goalscorer betting. Last time round in the group stages Cameroon and Australia let in 9 goals and Honduras shipped 8.

It could well be a case of deja-vu as Australia let in 11 goals in their 10 qualification matches and again look to be pretty weak and needed the play-off to make it to the finals.

South Korea  and Saudi Arabia both let in 10 goals in their 10 AFC matches so could be a bit weak as well. It’s tricky to draw any conclusions from Africa as teams only play 6 matches but Nigeria let in more (6) than any of the other teams that qualified. In CONCACAF Mexico smashed the group and Panama were the ones who squeeked through, however, the did not score many or concede many so might not let in lots of goals.

In CONMEBOL Peru look the weakest team and would have finished 8th in qualifying if Bolivia hadn’t fielded an ineligible player and turning a 0-2 loss into a 3-0 win.

In Europa Poland topped their group but let in 14 goals during qualifying which is 5 more than anyone else.

Of these teams mentioned we can see that 2 of them, Australia and Peru, are in Group C so France could well be a team that will score some goals.  South Korea are in with Germany and Poland are in Group H which looks wide open.