World Cup
Argentina vs Croatia prediction
13 DEC @ 19:00
Argentina ended up beating the Netherlands on penalties to reach the 2022 FIFA World Cup semi-final. Thank to Wout Weighorst’s equaliser in the 101st minute from a superb free kick, our tip came in. I’ll admit, we got a bit lucky with that one but we’re still over 90% in correct tips this tournament.
Prior to that, Lionel Scaloni’s side had been excellent defensively. And they had got themselves into a 2-0 lead through Nahul Molina’s excellent first touch and finish, from Lionel Messi’s pass of the tournament in the first half. Messi himself doubled their lead from the penalty spot in the final 20 minutes after a clumsy mistake from Denzel Dumfries.
Croatia will know all about defending themselves as that’s what they spent the majority of 120 minutes doing versus Brazil before seeing off the pre-tournament favourites on a penalty shootout. We kept telling you with each round that Brazil weren’t going to win this one. You can thank us now.
The European side did rely on a big deflection for their equaliser in extra-time but there was no doubting them when it came to spot kicks. Dominik Livakovic was a master, but he’d also made save after save, with arms and legs during the game. Arguably, Brazil just needed one lucky break in 90 minutes and they may have progressed.
Unfortunately for Croatia, I don’t think they’re going to have much success versus this Argentinian defence. And I do think Messi is going to produce that moment of magic to take himself to a second World Cup final. Croatia have been to extra-time in both games now and have had little opportunity to rotate their squad so fatigue is going to have to start kicking in on a short week if the’re going to be chasing the ball for 90 minutes in this match, as I expect.
Best bet: Argentina to win is 5/6 with BetFred