Portugal v Austria
Saturday, 20:00
Live on BBC1
Saturday, 20:00
Live on BBC1
Portugal
Negatives: the result. The fact they only scored one goal from 26 shots. Guilty of a lapse in concentration to concede Iceland's goal. The absence of a Plan B when they had 40 minutes to get a winning goal. Positives: for the most part they looked organised and well-drilled. The fact they created so many chances to start with. The fact that there's no need to panic, a draw is a draw and Austria's loss means that topping the group is very much still a possibility.
Having been injured for most of the season, it's hardly surprising Joao Moutinho didn't look fully fit. He could be replaced by one of the two young guns- William Carvalho or Renato Sanches, who looked lively in a 20-minute cameo. Fernando Santos could do worse than try to find a place in the starting XI for the mercurial Ricardo Quaresma, possibly at the expense of Joao Mario.
Cristiano Ronaldo needs to let his feet do the talking rather than his lips. His comments at the end of the Iceland match stank of sour grapes and he'd be better advised to comment on his own performance rather than Iceland's.
Austria
On another day they could have been 1-0 up within the first minute. On Tuesday they lost 2-0, had Aleksandar Dragovic sent off and are now up against it. They also saw Zlatko Januzovic limp off injured and if he were to miss this match, they'd be deprived of one of their chief creator of goals.
The fact they conceded shouldn't have come as a surprise to stats-lovers because as Opta tell us, they've now gone 13 matches without a clean sheet at major tournaments.
The bigger worry is that if and when Portugal do score, they have a goal of their own in them. They could do with giving David Alaba, the man who almost scored so early, more freedom to roam forward.
Match Odds
One of those where you could make a case for any of the three outcomes. At 5.40 Austria are arguably the value on the back of an impressive qualifying campaign; the fact they had one bad match doesn't make them a bad team. The draw at 3.75 is a lively runner for two relatively evenly matched teams who wouldn't see a point as disastrous. You could also make a case for 1.81 Portugal on the basis they're technically the better side, have Ronaldo and were guilty of not finishing off the game against Iceland rather than playing a poor game. But with so much uncertainty, the obvious play is to leave this market alone.
Over/Under 2.5 Goals/Both Teams to score
Results over the past year or so point to Portugal being an 'unders' side with plenty of 1-0 wins in qualifying. Had Iceland's goal not come when it did, they would probably have been more than content to let their first match end that way rather than going in search of a second.
But Austria looked vulnerable on the break against Hungary and as discussed already, find it extremely hard not to concede at major tournaments.
A better alternative is that both teams will score. 1-1 ranks as one of the likelier outcomes given everything we've said already whereas an early goal for either side would obviously open up the game. Interestingly, Portugal have a recent habit of producing a somewhat crazy game in the second match of a tournament (2-2 against the USA in 2014, 3-2 against Denmark in 2012) but even without that quirky trend, this looks a solid bet with two defences we can't really trust.
Recommended Bets
Back both teams to score @ 2.14
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