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Euro 2016 Final: France vs Portugal Betting Preview

uefa euro 2016 france

With a sublime display of attacking football last night France booked their place in the Euro 2016 final against Portugal; and history dictates that the hosts should enjoy themselves come Sunday night as they look to win a historic third trophy on home soil.

Les Bleus have won their last ten games against the Portuguese, who themselves have only won one match inside 90 minutes at Euro 2016. As far as final mismatches go, this is right up there with the best of them.

So can Cristiano Ronaldo and co cause a huge upset, or are France’s pre-match odds of Evens as ridiculously generous as they at first appear?

 

Match Betting

Few pundits could believe how open ended the semi-final between France and Germany was. The game ebbed and flowed from end to end, and could quite easily have been 4-4. There were 34 shots on goal, eleven of which were on target, and eleven corners. And while the French only had 32% of the ball they were able to still net twice. That will be a huge worry for the Portuguese.

There might be a perception that big cup finals are tight and conservative affairs; the knowledge of what’s at stake turning the players into risk-averse automatons. But nothing could be further from the truth: at Euro 2012, Spain romped home 4-0 against Italy in the final. There was a whopping 15 shots on target from both sides and six corners.

And then in 2008’s grand finale, okay, so the scoreline was only 1-0 in Spain’s favour against Germany, but there were eight shots on target and eleven corners in the match.

The upshot of all this is that the more open the game is, the more space and time on the ball that France’s main attacking trio of Antoine Griezmann, Dimitri Payet and Paul Pogba will have on the ball. Although this Portugal defence has rarely been breached in the competition – three clean sheets in six outings – they have yet to meet a creative pivot quite like France’s.

Can Portugal find the net themselves to push this game into extra time or penalties? Well, the omens aren’t good. In the first 90 minutes of matches, they have scored just seven goals in six games – and three of those came against Hungary. With Samuel Umtiti looking a far more solid prospect at centre half than Adil Rami, and the likely selection of N’Golo Kante as a shield in front of the back four, Portugal will find Les Bleus’ defence to be an almost impenetrable wall.

It is worth mentioning again: that price of Evens on a France win inside 90 minutes is exceptional value.

 

Other Betting Tips

It is never advisable for punters to ignore prevailing stats, and normally we would never encourage you to do so.

Given that of the 12 combined Portugal/France matches at Euro 2016, eight have gone under 2.5 goals you might expect this to be red hot value.

But this is a final, and not only that it could be an open one packed with attacking action too. The average first goal time in the tournament has been the 43rd minute, and so if one side takes the lead in the first half the other will have to chase the game; thus leaving themselves open to dangerous counter attacks.

At 13/8 with William Hill, there is enough logic here to back the Over 2.5 Goal mark in this match.

On a similar theme, what if France – as expected – score the first goal? Portugal’s defensive trapdoor will clank open as they push for an equaliser, gaps will appear and messrs Griezmann, Payet and Giroud will have plenty of opportunities to put the game beyond doubt. As such, the France -1 Handicap looks huge value at 3/1 with BetVictor.

 

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