James Cantrill previews Croatia's Round of 16 clash with Japan, picking out a 50/1 best bet.
Football betting tips: Japan v Croatia
1pt Dejan Lovren 81.5+ passes and Joško Gvardiol 82.5+ passes at 10/1 (bet365)
0.25pts Croatia half-time/Japan full-time at 50/1 (Coral, Vbet)
Topping Group E may be the greatest achievement in Japanese mens football, well, judging by the players and fans reaction you would have to assume so.
Their stalwart in central defence, Maya Yoshida, could not hold back the tears after the final whistle went on Thursday, and some of the Samurai Blue faithful looked to be in physical pain after their spot in the knock-out stages was confirmed.
You can understand the outcry of emotion though.
Japan, who had never previously beaten a World Cup winner, had beaten two in the space of three days.
The odds of 14/1 for them to trump Spain and Germany gave them less then a 7% chance of reaching the helm of their group, but they did precisely this.
Against Spain, the Samurai Blue had just 17.7% of the ball, which is the lowest possession figure ever recorded for a winning side in World Cup history!
Since records began in 1966, only on two occasions has a team lost a game despite registering over 700 passes; one of them was Germany against Japan last Wednesday and the other was Spain against Japan on Thursday.
For the Germans, Antonio Rüdiger racked up 114 passes and Nico Schlotterbeck bettered that total by one.
La Furia Roja centre back partnership attempted a combined total of 404 with Rodri breaking the record for attempted passes by five with 215.
Croatia’s centre backs, Dejan Lovren and Joško Gvardiol, have averaged 62.7 and 76 per game this WC but combined to attempt over 200 against Morocco and I expect them to hit similar tallies here.
You can combine Lovren to attempt 81.5 passes with Gvardiol to attempt 82.5 passes at 10/1 with bet365.
This certainly looks large considering they both smashed this line in a similar game with Morocco.
The similarities of their victories over their European counterparts are too precise not to be coincidence.
On both occasions they went a goal down in the first half, on both occasions substitutes swung the tie in their favour, Japan scored two second half goals in both games and both games finished 2-1.
It is almost as if Hajime Moriyasu's side game plan was to lull the Europeans into a false sense of security with a timid first half display then pounce after some inspired substitutions.
See what I mean about these performances being too similar to be flukes? Write Japan off at your peril.
Given the blueprint both of these games followed, I think a punt on CROATIA HALF-TIME/ JAPAN FULL-TIME is worth a go at 50/1.
Japan v Croatia best bets and score prediction
- 1pt Dejan Lovren 81.5+ passes and Joško Gvardiol 82.5+ passes at 10/1 (bet365)
- 0.25pts Croatia half-time/Japan full-time at 50/1 (Coral, Vbet)
Score prediction: Japan 3-1 Croatia (Sky Bet odds: 33/1)
Odds correct at 1415 GMT (03/12/22)
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