Portugal v Switzerland: BTTS catches eye at odds against after Swiss thriller with Serbs
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World Cup 2022: Portugal v Switzerland betting tips and odds
Portugal face a familiar foe in the last 16 as they take on a Switzerland team still buoyed by edging a heated battle with Serbia in one of the best games of the World Cup.
Fernando Santos made six changes for Portugal’s final group game and they looked well on course for a third successive win when they took an early lead, but South Korea equalised to give us a 7/2 winner on both teams scoring in the first half and then struck a dramatic stoppage-time winner through substitute Hwang Hee-chan.
This will be the sixth meeting in as many years between these nations, with Portugal holding a 3-2 lead in the head to head.
Both nations won their home games 2-0 in the 2018 World Cup qualifiers, but they met even more recently in this year’s Nations League over the space of seven days in June when the hosts prevailed in the two matches in front of their own supporters.
Portugal’s victory was much more emphatic, Cristiano Ronaldo scoring twice in between William Carvalho’s 15th-minute opener and Joao Cancelo’s 20-yard strike in a 4-0 victory.
The Swiss avenged that defeat a week later as Haris Seferovic headed in the only goal of the game after just 57 seconds – the fastest goal in Nations League history – to end a three-match losing streak against Portugal which also extended the run of a winner in contests between these teams to seven games.
However, Switzerland’s route to the knockout stage was much more dramatic, a rollercoaster 3-2 victory over the Serbs in which the lead changed hands three times before Remo Freuler settled a fiery clash with a winner early in the second half.
Switzerland may be the underdogs but they have taken some major scalps in the last 18 months, most memorably coming back from 3-1 down to score twice in the last 10 minutes against France at last year’s Euro 2020, eventually going through on penalties, although they went out to Spain in a spot-kick shoot-out in the quarters.
They avenged that defeat by becoming the first country in almost four years to beat the Spaniards on their own turf with a 2-1 Nations League win in Zaragoza just over two months ago, so they have a good record against big teams, although admittedly they barely laid a glove on Brazil in their 1-0 defeat in which they failed to produce a shot on target.
Tuesday’s opponents Portugal struggled to get past a youthful Ghana side in their opening group game which exploded into life in the second half with five goals.
Two of their games have involved goals at both ends and although that was not the case when they met in the Nations League, we’re now at the business end of the tournament and an open game could be on the cards.
The odds suggest it will be Portugal facing either Spain or Morocco in the quarter-finals, but Serbia struggled to handle the impressive Breel Embolo, who scored his second goal of the tournament on Friday.
