Football betting tips: World Cup
2pts Senegal to qualify at 11/8 (bet365, Paddy Power)
0.5pt Senegal to win in 90 minutes at 13/5 (Paddy Power)
There has certainly been a degree of big nation bias in the pricing of several round-of-32 ties, with South American and European teams favoured enormously by the market despite there being very little evidence to back that up.
By the skin of their teeth Brazil scraped past a Japan team who were touching 5/1 in places. Morocco narrowly avoided an unfortunate defeat after dominating the Netherlands, and ultimately secured a deserved victory on penalties after being 12/5 outsiders to qualify.
Although Germany really should have beaten Paraguay, they were far too short for a team nobody had any faith in.
I'm taking a chance here as at the time of writing the Ivory Coast and Norway are yet to meet, but The Elephants are a remarkable 29/10 to win in 90 minutes, with Erling Haaland and co. into 11/10 generally.
Which brings us neatly on to Belgium against SENEGAL.
All of the concerns about Belgium's age, lack of energy and unfit key players were laid bare across two poor performances that saw them draw against Egypt and Iran in the group stage.
Luckily for Rudi Garcia's men they faced the 86th-ranked team in the world on matchday three, and duly thrashed New Zealand 5-1 - a result given extra gloss by a flurry of late goals.
It meant they topped one of the poorest groups in the tournament.
Senegal, meanwhile, roared to a 5-0 win over Iraq to escape the group of death as one of the best third-placed teams.
It was no shock to anyone who watched their opening two matches. Senegal dominated France for 45 minutes before being punished for a hatful of missed chances when Michael Olise and Kylian Mbappe decided to turn up after the break.
They then came out on the wrong side of a thrilling 3-2 encounter with Norway.
At 13/5 TO WIN IN 90 MINUTES and 11/8 TO QUALIFY they are backed to take care of a vastly overrated Belgium team.
Look beyond Pape Thiaw's decision to call his players off the field during the final of AFCON. He has done a terrific job.
Senegal's strength is their front-footed, energetic approach, a playing style that will expose the deficiencies of a side still heavily reliant on Kevin De Bruyne when it is completely unreasonable to be.
Thiaw's team are far more than just athleticism, though. Not only are they packed with quality attacking players, they have depth that Belgium could only dream of, with Thiaw ringing the changes against Iraq and using his bench to great effect.
Perhaps De Bruyne and Romelu Lukaku have one more show left in them to drag their team in to the round of 16.
But at 8/13 for that to happen, we simply must back against it.
Odds correct 17:00 BST (30/06/26)
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