France v Netherlands and other World Cup qualifier tips
The 2018 World Cup is starting to loom large on the horizon and Europe’s best teams will seek to bolster their attempts to qualify in a range of fixtures this week. On Thursday France, the Netherlands, Belgium and more leading lights from across Europe will go into battle and try to secure three points. Victory would mean a huge step towards making it to Russia next summer, but defeat could be catastrophic. Here we preview the biggest games of the day:
France v Netherlands
France have one of the strongest teams in the world and are among the favourites to win the World Cup in 2018, but they need to get points on the board as they trail Sweden in their group and have Netherlands lurking behind. They beat Dick Advocaat’s men 1-0 away from home earlier this year and will fancy their chances of repeating the feat on home soil this time around. With an attack featuring Antoine Griezmann, Kylian Mbappe, Ousmane Dembele and more they should have plenty of goals in them. But they are solid defensively to thanks to the presence of N’Golo Kante and Raphael Varane among others. There have been some great Dutch teams over the years, but the current crop is not up to scratch and they did not even qualify for Euro 2016. This should be a France win all day long and the 8/13 on offer at Ladbrokes and other green listed bookmakers looks good as a single and in an accumulator, but for more value Bet365 has a very tempting 53/50 on France -1 Asian handicap.
Portugal v Faroe Islands
European champions Portugal should absolutely decimate the Faroe Islands, ranked 91st in the world by FIFA, in this game. They beat them 6-0 away earlier in qualifying and should rack up another huge score here. Cristiano Ronaldo will be raring to go as he has not played for Real Madrid due to injury, and the World Player of the Year should terrorise an extremely limited Faroe Islands defence. Portugal -3.5 is 3/4 with Bet365, which is an amazing price when you consider they won by six clear goals away from home. The same bookmaker has 9/4 on Ronaldo to score a hat-trick.
Belgium v Gibraltar
This should be an even bigger mismatch, pitting one of the world’s best sides against a tiny rock off the coast of Spain, whose national team is made up of part-timers. The likes of Romelu Lukaku, Eden Hazard and Kevin De Bruyne should rip through Gibraltar’s feeble defence time and time again, and as such Belgium are just 1/100 to win this, which looks like the easiest £1 you would ever make. The Asian handicap line has been set at Belgium -6 by 888 Sport and it is offering just 1/2. It looks interesting as Belgium won 6-0 in Gibraltar and should kill them in front of their home fans, but they might go four or five up and take the foot off the pedal, so it could be risky.
Cyprus v Bosnia-Herzegovina
A Bosnian side featuring household names like Miralem Pjanic and Eden Dzeko, two of the best players in Serie A, beat Cyprus 2-0 earlier in the qualifying stage and sit
comfortably ahead of the island nation in their group. They are away from home here but can expect a similar outcome as they are by far the better side, well above Cyprus in the world rankings. A straight Bosnia win is 8/15 at Bet365 and that would make a good accumulator with France and perhaps also Greece, who should easily dispatch Estonia and are decently priced to do so. For more value in this game, Bosnia -1 Asian handicap is 23/20 with Bet365.
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