FIFA 2022 World Cup: Protest Kits, Sobering Tents and Football Fans Unable to Watch Games On TV in Qatar
The World Cup is fast approaching, and while most eyes will be on the favourites among the 32 nations taking part in Qatar, it might be worth taking a closer look at three nations that may just pull off a surprise at the 2022 finals.
Anyone putting together their World Cup betting plans will be banking on some certainties to help balance their books but may also be open to a few longer odds opportunities to help sweeten the pot.
Leading the World Cup Odds
So, how are the current odds stacking up? Well, the usual suspects make up the top spots in the betting, which look like this.
Brazil 9/2
France 27/4
Argentina 7/1
Spain 9/1
England 10/1
The top five teams in the betting are not huge surprises. Brazil lead the way down to their excellent World Cup qualifying campaign when they didn’t lose a game and led the way by some distance.
2018 winners France are second-favourites with most bookies. Then you have Argentina next, with Lionel Messi taking part in his final World Cup finals. Spain are fourth favourites, and they are followed by the Three Lions of England, with Gareth Southgate looking to end 56 years of hurt; that’s how long it’s now been since their famous 1966 triumph.
So if we look outside these front-runners, who are worth backing?
Netherlands – 13/1 with Grosvenor Sports
The Dutch are back with a bang. Veteran coach Louis van Gaal is back in the managerial driving seat, having previously been in charge, briefly, in 2000-2001 and again between 2012 and 2014. The former Manchester United manager has an excellent record in charge of the Oranje. He’s amazingly lost just four times in the total of 59 games he’s been at the helm in those three spells.
The Netherlands didn’t make it to the last World Cup but qualified comfortably for this one, and they have a squad full of genuinely world-class talents, including Liverpool centre-back Virgil van Dijk, AS Roma midfielder Giorginio Wijnaldum, Barcelona’s Frenkie de Jong and Memphis Depay as well as a host of other talents.
Overall their squad has a nice balance to it, and they start the competition with the easiest of group draws when they’ll go up against hosts Qatar, Ecuador and Senegal, which will help them ease into the tournament.
The odds offered on Holland going all the way are worth making a small wager.
Portugal – 12/1 with BoyleSports
This is likely to be Cristiano Ronaldo’s final shot at picking up the ultimate prize, and there are plenty of other great players in Fernando Santos’s set-up, which makes the creative Portuguese side a decent outside bet.
When it comes to attacking talents, Portugal is stacked pretty heavily with Diogo Jota (who may return from injury in time to take part in Qatar), Bruno Fernandes, Rafael Leao, Joao Felix, Bernardo Silva and, of course, Cristiano Ronaldo.
Then you have the likes of Joao Cancelo, Ruben Dias, Danilo Pereira, Rui Patricio and Pepe, and you are barely touching the surface. There is a lot of strength in depth in their squad, and once they get to the knockout stages, then we can see them going places, especially with Ronaldo keen to make an impact.
Germany – 11/1 with Grosvenor Sports
It may seem odd to consider the German national team as an outside shot of success in the World Cup, we are, after all, talking about a country that has won the tournament four times, but amazingly this time around, when it comes to the World Cup betting odds, they find themselves outside the list of top five nations.
They were not seeded for the tournament but are always going to be a threat in any finals tournament. While they do have Spain in their group, they should still easily get through to the last 16, as neither Japan nor Costa Rica should hold any fears for Hansi Flick’s team.
2018 was a complete disaster for Die Mannschaft, as they failed to even get out of their group and, as a result, secured their worst-ever display in the tournament. However, they qualified for 2022 with aplomb, winning nine of their ten matches (and scoring 36 goals in the process), and Flick has a strong squad to call upon.
There is plenty of experience in the Germany squad, and players like Thomas Muller, Joshua Kimmich, Antonio Rudiger, Manuel Neuer, Julian Draxler, Marco Reus, and Ilkay Gundogan are well-versed in finals tournaments.
More excitingly, there are also some great youngsters coming through, and you can expect Jamal Musiala, Bayern Munich’s teenager wunderkind, to really impress.
To be able to get odds of 11/1, and even higher, on Germany to win their fifth World Cup is frankly tempting beyond belief.
