WORLD CUP MATCH PREVIEW: MOROCCO VS IRAN
Date: Thursday, 15th June 2018
Kick-Off : 16:00
Venue: Saint-Petersburg Stadium
Two teams with an outside chance of making it out of group B clashes as Northern African team Morocco lock horns with Asian side Iran. Since it’s a group that contains Spain and Portugal both teams will see this game as an opportunity to get 3 crucial points.
For Morocco it’s been 20 years since they participated in this great tournament and they will surely be trying to make their presence felt. They topped their group in the final round of the African WC Qualifications without conceding a single goal in six matches(11-0 goal difference). The Africans kept the steller form going after the qualifying campaign winning all but one(draw) of the 5 warm up games.
Their defence is lead by strong and experience Juventus center back Mehdi Benatia, and Wolverhampton’s Romain Saiss who played 42 matches in Championship this season. As if the experience was not enough, the mixture of talent is evident with 19-year-old Achraf Hakimi on the left back, from Real Madrid. In their rank is also Hakim Ziyech, the Dutch footballer of the year is a marvellous set piece taker and it won’t come as a surprise to see him making the difference for the Lions of Atlas in Russia. The Ajax man will be supported by 20-year-old wonder kid Amine Harit from Schalke 04 has got the highest transfer market value for his age. The midfield consists of hard-working players who make it incredibly compact to penetrate.
Iran ended the previous term in a poor fashion after clinching just one point in the group with Argentina, Nigeria and Bosnia-Herzegovina. Nevertheless, they arrived in Russia with a much more talented squad led the Portuguese expert Carlos Queiroz.
They are also defensive specialists team with Carlos Queiroz on the sideline. They were undefeated in the Asian qualifiers where they only conceded two goals. But they lost 2-1 to Turkey at the back end of May, and followed that up last week with a rather stale 1-0 win against Lithuania. Their recent defeats to Turkey and Tunisia don’t bode well for them, and it was only nine months ago that they failed to beat Syria on home soil.
Morocco Predicted Lineup: Bounou, Hakimi, Benatia, Saiss, Mendyl, Boussoufa, El Ahmadi, Amrabat, Belhanda, Ziyech, El Kaabi
Iran Predicted Lineup: Beiranvard, Rezaeian, Cheshmi, Pouraliganji, Mohammadi, Shojaei, Hajsafi, Ebrahimi, Taremi, Jahanbakhsh, Azmoun
PREDICTION
These two teams are similar in many ways, but Morocco having the more offensive talent and variety. Player by player should be considered the favourite here. Simply put, they have neither the talent or the form that Morocco possess at the moment, and that i think makes them slight underdogs here.
Pick: Morocco wins @ 2.45 odds
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