The opening match in the 2022 Fifa World Cup takes place on Sunday when host nation Qatar clash with Ecuador in Group A
Odds provided by @Playabets are correct at the time of writing but are subject to change.
Group A also includes the Netherlands and Senegal who will clash on Monday.
Qatar
The host nation qualify automatically so Qatar remain something of an unknown having played mainly friendly internationals over the last couple of years. They have a ranking of 50 and this is their first appearance in the finals. Felix Sanchez is the coach and the squad of locally based players has been holed up in a training camp for the last 6 months.
Their last 4 warm up matches, against Albania, Panama, Honduras and Guatemala all ended in victory and prior to that they drew 2-2 with Chile and lost 2-0 to
Canada.
Qatar are trading at around 15/1 to win this group and 3/1 to qualify for the knockout rounds
Ecuador
Ecuador finished fourth in the South American qualifying group, 2 points behind Uruguay but well off Argentina and Brazil to advance to the finals automatically. They had to survive protests from Chile and Peru concerning eligibility of one of the players in the qualifiers, 7 of which they won, 5 were drawn and 6 ended in defeat.
Ecuador are ranked 44th in the world and their strength has been their home form with games played at altitude. Brighton's Moises Caicedo is one of the star performers and the team is coached by Gustavo Alfaro.
Three recent warm up matches all finished 0-0, against Iraq, Japan and Saudi Arabia.
Ecuador are trading at around 4.75/1 to win this group and even money to qualify for the knockout rounds
The Betting
Qatar are currently 22/10 to win the game with the draw at 21/10 and Ecuador can be backed at around 1.43/1
A game of 3 goals or more is priced at 1.55/1 and it's 1.12/1 for both teams to score.
Note, odds are correct at the time of writing but are subject to change
The Verdict:
With the Netherlands and Senegal to come for both these sides any loser here will have a mountain to climb in terms of qualification.
This World Cup is taking us into the unknown in more ways than one but my gut feel here is this will be tight and low scoring. I'll take my chances with no more than 1 goal in total.
Bets: Total match goals under 1.5 at 1.55/1 with Playabets
Note, odds are correct at the time of writing but are subject to change
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Note, odds are correct at the time of writing but are subject to change
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