Looking forward eagerly to the opening match of the World Cup?
I was until I saw the dreaded words – Clive Tyldesley and Glenn Hoddle. Yes,
ITV have the honour of the first game. Gawd. Tyldesley joined ITV in 1996 as
understudy to the great Brian Moore but has never quite got the knack of it
despite working at 4 world cups, 4 European championships, 17 Champions
League finals and 9 FA cup finals. As for Hoddle, his simplistic “he’s got to
hit the target from there, he'll be disappointed with that, that's not the start they wanted, he shot and it went past the post’ style of analysis really does make you wonder how he
ever had a career in coaching, even such a hugely unsuccessful one.
And as usual we can have the sweepstake on how quickly after
kick-off one of them mentions England. Not counting before the start as most of
the build-up will as usual be focused on Southgate’s team rather than the ones
actually about to play. I’ll take four minutes thanks.
But the game itself – between the two lowest-ranked sides in
attendance – should be better than expected, if only because those expectations
are low. Saudi Arabia bring a completely home-based squad (not a good sign) while
Russia’s lowly rank is partly due to the fact that they haven’t played any competitive
games for two years apart from three at the Confederations Cup in June 2017
where they defeated New Zealand but lost to Portugal and Mexico. The Saudis
have lost their last three friendlies and couldn’t provide a comfier opening
challenge for the hosts, on paper at least.
So I’m going for a narrow Russian win with Smolov to score
first. As always though, the best betting advice is to ignore all betting
advice. Apart from this. The advice to ignore the advice that is, not the advice itself. Got that? Good.
The ever-contracting football calendar illustrated by the
fact that the English Premiership fixtures were also published this morning and
on the opening day we have the delights of Watford vs Brighton, Fulham vs
Crystal Palace and Bournemouth vs Cardiff. Can't wait. Scottish games published
tomorrow at 9am.
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