The World Cup final is here, and it’s a classic David versus Goliath contest.
In one corner we have France, winners of this tournament in 1998 and hot favourites to do so again. Opposing them are Croatia, a newly independent country of just four million people making their debut in the final.
Croatia have done amazingly well to get this far – they have progressed through three consecutive lots of extra time and survived two penalty shootouts.
However, they now face a resolute French side which has only been behind in this tournament for just nine minutes. Les Bleus are built on a strong defence, with a hard working midfield and some real talent up front. We think this will be too much for the Croatians, and thus we expect France to be crowned champions later today.
As far as betting is concerned, we’re going to continue a theme that has served us reasonably well in this tournament.
Both French centre backs, Samuel Umtiti and Raphael Varane, have scored from set pieces already. With France set to dominate the ball and Croatia looking suspect at times at free kicks and corners, we will take a punt on these big defenders causing mischief in the opposition’s penalty area.
Our final bet concerns Kylian Mbappe. We were big fans of this young forward at the start of the tournament (World Cup: Killer Kylian…) and his play has only enhanced that opinion. He shone in the semifinal and we’ll take the 5/1 on offer that he is named man of the match.
Recommendations:
Umtiti to score anytime, 0.5 pts, at 16/1, bet365
Varane to score anytime, 0.5 pts, at 16/1, bet365
Mbappe to be named man of the match, 1 pt, at 5/1, widely available
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