Portugal vs Germany
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Portugal vs Germany takes place in Munich on 19 June in the fourth game of Group F of the European Championships. Portugal were unable to break open the Hungarian defence until late on in their opening fixture but thanks to record European Championship goalscorer Cristiano Ronaldo were able to run out 3-0 winners. They face a Germany side who were beaten at home by France and who could struggle to get out of the group with another defeat here. Read on for analysis, match predictions and betting tips for this game.
Form
Portugal have only lost once in the last two years in international football, and their dominance showed in the game against Hungary on Tuesday. Against the Magyars Portugal had 70% of possession and 11 shots on goal, but it took until the 84th minute for Fernando Santos’ men to break the deadlock and even then it was only thanks to a huge deflection from Raphael Guerrero’s shot to break the Hungarian resistance. Against Germany they will face a much stronger test.
Germany have been in uncharacteristically turbulent form coming into this tournament but as they always seem to do, they have stepped up a gear for the finals and were maybe unlucky to lose to France. Forward Thomas Muller, midfielder Ilkay Gundogan and Serge Gnabry could have all potentially scored and that lack of clinical finishing ended up costing Germany. Joachim Low will know defeat here will make qualification hard and and it will be interesting to see if he shakes things up.
Injuries
There are no new injuries in the Portuguese squad which means Fernando Santos has the luxury of a full squad to choose from. Talismanic forward Cristiano Ronaldo now has 11 golas in the finals of this tournament making him the record goalscorer and he will almost certainly lead the line once again. Against Hungary he was on the right hand side of a front three which included Liverpool forward Diogo Jota and Man City player Bernardo Silva; it will be interesting to see if Santos goes with that again.
Chelsea and Germany defender Toni Rudiger could have been in trouble having appeared to have bitten France midfielder Paul Pogba but he denied doing so and has been cleared by UEFA, meaning he is free to play in this game. However, Leon Goretzka and Jonas Hofmann are both doubts for this game due to injuries which kept them out of the opening fixture.
Match Predictions
Despite their iffy form of late, Germany are marginal favourites with the bookies with many offering around the 2.30 mark against Germany recording victory here. It’s clear the bookies expect a tight margin too, with Both Teams To Score at around 1.80 and over 2.5 goals above 2.00. As much as we think Germany have the wherewithal to win in this game, it’s hard to write off a team as good as Portugal and we think the handicap markets might be where the value betting tips can be found.
