Algeria v Russia: Goals to light game’s fuse in second half
Published:While Fabio Capello’s last World Cup charges have already boarded their flight home, his current crop head into their final Group H outing knowing they must beat Algeria to ensure they don’t follow England’s flight home.
Russia have been insipid so far in Brazil, but as they’re facing the first African side to score four goals or more in a World Cup game, onion-bag action features heavily in our three best bets for the game:
There’s every chance that the first half of this match will be a snooze-fest, before bursting into life after the players have taken on refreshments at the interval.
Every one of the last eight goals Algeria have conceded in World Cups have come after the break, while Russia are also defensively lapse in the second period having shipped eight of their last nine goals at the tournament in that half.
Algerian attacking confidence is likely to be higher than Harold and Kumar on the search for White Castle having just slotted four past a ragged South Korean outfit last time out.
Their prospects of finding the net at least once against Russia are thoroughly boosted by their Eurasian opponents’ shoddy defence too.
Russia have kept just one World Cup clean sheet in their last eight matches since the 1994 tournament.
Faced with such a porous defence and with the chance to qualify for the knockout round for the first time in their history, Algeria simply cannot be overlooked to prevail here, especially at that price.
South Korea hadn’t set the tournament alight when the Fennec Foxes faced them and were promptly brushed aside, so expect the same outcome when Algeria face the other uninspiring outfit in Group H.
All Odds and Markets are correct as of the date of publishing.
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