Russia v Portugal Betting Tips: Hosts to come up short in Moscow

As the only team in Group A to win their opening fixture, Russia currently have the upper hand but, with Portugal and Mexico to play, they’ve still got plenty of work to do to qualify, let alone finish top.

Portugal may well have picked up just a point on match-day one but considering that came against Mexico, the team who were always likely to provide their stiffest test, it was by no means a bad start.

Russia beat a poor New Zealand side first time up so that result doesn’t exactly tell us much, although the fact that they did so in somewhat unconvincing fashion probably does. Quite frankly, Portugal should have far more up their sleeve than the tournament hosts and they look a good bet to secure all three points. It looked as though a better team than New Zealand – which Portugal clearly are – would cause Russia some serious defensive problems and so backing ‘Portugal to Score Over 1.5 Goals’ also makes plenty of appeal ahead of this one.

With lots of star-quality in their squad, particularly in the final third, Portugal have unsurprisingly found themselves finding the net on a regular basis in recent times. Not only did they notch twice last time out, but the current European champions have scored at least twice in each of their last eight matches.

It’s fair to say that Portugal set up to contain a possession-based Mexico side in the first match but you’d like to think that they’re capable of dominating against Russia and so a more positive line-up could be selected by Fernando Santos. Gelson Martins and Bernardo Silva are two attack-minded midfielders who could come in while it would be no surprise at all if the in-form striker Andre Silva came in to partner Cristiano Ronaldo at the head of affairs.

Talking of Andre Silva, the man whose strong form last season earned him a big money move to sleeping Italian giants AC Milan has scored on each of his last two starts for the national side and certainly gives the impression that he’s a striker who knows his way to goal. If he does start, which looks fairly likely given both his form and the fact that he made a positive impact when coming on late in the day against Mexico, backing the 21-year-old to find the net looks a good bet. With the creative players in their ranks, the forward is unlikely to be without chances against a Russian back-line that looked far from sturdy on Friday and can continue his scoring run when playing from the outset.

As they’re the tournament hosts, and since they won first up and are unbeaten in four matches, it would be easy to think that Russia could put up a decent fight here but they really didn’t create the best impression against a New Zealand side who’re miles behind Portugal in terms of both footballing stature and overall quality. Against a more than useful side, one that possess a combination of some of Europe’s most experienced and most promising attacking talents, the Russians are fancied to come up short.

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