Pre-match information:
Place: Russia. Kaliningrad. Kaliningrad Arena.
Date: on the 25th of June, 2018 (Monday)
Match start: 19:00 (GMT+1)
Tournament: FIFA World Cup Russia 2018, group B, 3rd round
Trio of underdogs of the FIFA World Cup in Russia
All three matches of the group stage of the World Cup which have taken place on the 20th of June, Wednesday June ended with the same score – 1:0. One goal was scored by Luís Suárez, Cristiano Ronaldo and Diego Costa into the gates of their rivals. However these winning goals of the forwards of the national teams of Uruguay, Portugal and Spain have considerably reduced total number of applicants for getting into the first round of the playoffs.
So, for example, in group A the teams of Egypt and Saudi Arabia have already lost even theoretical chances of getting into 1/8 finals while during decisive match that will be held on the 25th of June in Samara Russia and Uruguay will fight for a title of the winner of the first quartet.
And in group B the company of losers consists also of Morocco. Hervé Renard’s team has already lost two matches in a row to Iran (0:1) and Portugal (0:1). And therefore the last match with Furia Roja has now acquired for Moroccans the status of the friendly match.
Group tournament of the group B
Before the final third round the teams of Fernando Hierro and Fernando Santos became two leaders of the quartet quite predictably:
Spain – 4 (4:3), Portugal – 4 (4:3), Iran – 3 (1:1), Morocco – 0 (0:2)
And now again about the regulations of the tournament! As we see, now two group leaders have absolutely equal results by the number of points, on the difference of the scored and missed goals, and even by quantity of the scored goals.
At once we can ask one quite reasonable question – who will become the total winner of the quartet if in the last matches of the group stage Spain and Portugal again with the same score will win over their closest rivals? In this case, under absolute equality of three mentioned above factors, the most important will become the number of the yellow cards earned by two leaders in three matches of the group stage. According to the results of two rounds Spain has received one yellow card (Sergio Busquets), and Portuguese – two (Bruna Fernandes and Adrien Silva). So now Furia Roja has the minimum advantage.
Bookmaker coefficients on the match Spain vs Morocco
Of course, in order not to bring the definition of the winner of the group just to counting of the number of yellow cards, and especially, before the draw procedure in the forthcoming match with the underdog that has lost tournament motivation Fernando Hierro ‘s team will try to score as much as possible to Morocco. But the opinion of bookmakers on the winner of this meeting is obvious: Spain – 1.35, Morocco – 11.00.
Match prediction
On the 25th of June, Monday the decisive match in Samara between Russia and Uruguay will already end by the beginning of the last matches of group B. And therefore during two evening matches between Spain and Portugal certain “pulling of a rope” by choosing of the rival in the first round of the playoffs will begin. It is unlikely that today two top European teams are eager to become the closest rival of Russia. And now for the prediction we, of course, choose a bet on a final victory of Furia Roja.