Bosnia v Portugal, Wednesday 18th November

My Thoughts

Portugal go into this game with a narrow, 1-0 advantage from Saturday's 1st leg, courtesy of Bruno Alves' goal. For Bosnia, this will be by some margin their biggest ever game as an independent nation. The game has the potential to be open- previous play-off results tell us that 2nd legs tend to feature more goals that 1st legs- an average of 2.7 goals per game in 2nd legs, compared to 2.45 in 1st legs. Along with this, Bosnia's favoured 3-4-1-2 formation features two wing-backs in Senijad Ibricic (rumoured to be attracting interest from Celtic) and Sejad Salihovic whose strengths are going forward as opposed to backward- the flipside of this being that this gives space in advanced wide positions for the likes of Nani to exploit. Bosnia also must do without the suspended midfield pair of Elvir Rahimic and Samir Muratovic, aloing with centre-back Emir Spahic, and the injured Zvjezdan Misimovic, who looks set to be replaced by debutant Harris Medunjanin. Portugal, aside from the injured CR7, travelled to Bosnia with a fully-fit and suspension-free squad.

The Verdict
As was the case with the 1st leg, this is a very tough one to call. The history books do not favour Ciro Blazevic's men: in the last 12 years, of the 14 teams who have lost the 1st legs of their ties, only Holland have gone on to qualify. Bizarrely, of the 3 ties where a team has lost the 1st leg and won the 2nd leg, Scotland have featured in 2 of them. Bosnia must also improve on a defensive record which saw them concede 13 times in 10 qualifying matches- by means of comparison, Portugal only conceded 5. As mentioned in my previous post, the play-off matches usually seem to feature 4 home wins, and an equal number of draws and away wins. Given that Saturday saw 2 home wins, 1 away win and 1 draw, we can expect a similar sequence of results tonight- this writer would be erring to call this match as a draw. Expect a big effort from Bosnia, with Edin Dzeko causing real problems for the Portugal defence, but I ultimately reckon they will fall just short of the final hurdle.

The Bet
The draw can be backed at 12/5 with Ladbrokes. Also, it wouldn't be right if this writer didn't throw a couple of random anytime goalscorers in. In Pepe and Bruno Alves, Portugal have a pair of centre-backs capable of nabbing the odd goal, as shown by Bruno Alves netting the only goal of the game on Saturday. Pepe will probably be thinking to himself "It's my turn now" and can be backed to score anytime at 12/1 with William Hill. Also, how about Harris Medunjanin to mark his international debut with a goal? He can be backed anytime at 11/2 with bet365.