Colombia and England will face off on Tuesday evening for the last game of the 2018 FIFA World Cup. The winner of the match will meet the winner of the fixture between Sweden and Switzerland scheduled to kick off earlier in the day.
Colombia had a very impressive campaign in Brazil, making it into the quarter finals and producing the tournament’s top scorer in James Rodriguez. England, full of a new breed of players and endowed with a handsome squad depth, should however be a reason to worry for Los Cafeteros.
We have prepared below a preview of the match homing in on betting markets you may be interested to wager in. Odds used in the post are the latest from bookie Betfair.
This is no easy game to project if you have been following football recently. Both teams registered two wins and a defeat in the group stage, and have been roughly equals in the buildup to the World Cup finals.
Jose Pekerman’s men have three wins from their last six fixtures while England have managed a satisfactory four.
The Three Lions have been given a favourites’ backing of 23/20 to win the game in normal time and 8/15 to qualify while the Colombians are significantly down at 16/5 to take the victory inside 90 minutes and 6/4 to qualify. A draw – which we reckon has a high possibility of happening – is an 11/5 bet.
Tottenham Hotspur striker and England captain Harry Kane is a 3/1 bet to break the deadlock and 6/5 to score anytime. Compatriot Jamie Vardy – who is unlikely to be in the starting lineup – is 9/2 to be the first on the scoresheet and 21/10 to score anytime ahead of Radamel Falcao, Raheem Sterling and Danny Welbeck who are all quoted at 6/1 to score the first goal of the match, and 3/1 for Sterling and 11/4 for Falcao and Welbeck to score anytime. Marcus Rashford is a 13/2 bet to open the scoring and 3/1 to score anytime while Luis Muriel is set at 4/1 to net anytime and 9/1 to score the first goal.
Judging from group stage results, where four games out of a possible combined 6 for both sides produced more than two goals, we can expect three or more goals from tonight’s game. The prospect has been quoted at a lucrative 8/5 to happen while the contrary is a 1/2 bet.
England have been pretty impressive in front of goal recently but have certainly been average at the back. They have managed only one clean sheet in their last six fixtures – four of which are wins. Colombia have kept four clean sheets over the same number of fixtures and have been generally better on that front in the buildup to the World Cup finals. We reckon it will be difficult for the South Americans to prevent their defense from being breached but still easy for them to find a goal or two.
The prospect of both teams scoring is set at 5/4 with the contrary is up at 4/6.