Russia 2018 is right around the corner, which means you are going to start hearing a lot of talk about the teams who are the 2018 World Cup Betting favorites to win it all. It’s the usual cast of characters, with the likes of Brazil, Germany, and Argentina all very much in the conversation.
We all know who the teams most likely to win are, but what about the potential dark horses? If there is one thing we know about the World Cup from competitions past, it’s that we can expect a surprise or two along the way. Today, we are going to look at a couple of teams who might just be able to fill the dark horse role, just as the latest World Cup Odds at MyBookie Sportsbook indicate, so let’s look a little closer at Iceland and Panama.
2018 World Cup Betting Prediction for Iceland & Panama
“If you show up in the stadium in blue and you’re ready to chant for 90 minutes, you’re part of the group.”@p_smith86 speaks to Iceland supporters group @12Tolfan about their plans to light up their first-ever World Cup: https://t.co/afl4HaMbBm pic.twitter.com/INgQLrG6bS
— Sky Sports Football (@SkyFootball) 1 de junio de 2018
Iceland 2018 World Cup Betting Prediction
- FIFA Ranking: 22
- Coach: Heimir Hallgrimsson
- Top Player: Gylfi Sigurdsson
- First World Cup: 2018
- 2018 World Cup Odds to Win: +15000
If you only ever watch football every 4 years when the World Cup comes around, then you will have missed one of the great moments in recent football memory. A couple of years ago at the 2016 European Championships, the minnows from Iceland made everyone fall in love with them. The fans were outstanding with their “Volcano” chant, and the players on the field seemed to respond despite being seriously outclassed on paper. They made it out of the group stage, after which they knocked out England before finally falling to France.
In Russia, Iceland finds themselves in Group D alongside Argentina, Croatia, and Nigeria, which is perhaps the toughest group of the eight. We all expect Argentina to land on top of the group, but who will finish in the second spot? Iceland certainly has a shot, especially when you consider that they topped a qualifying group that included Croatia. It may well be their meeting in the group phase that decides who finishes second, and while Croatia is 4-1-1 in the previous meetings with Iceland, the two teams split their meetings in qualifying.
Iceland will once again be fun to watch and tough to beat, but will the excel like they did at the European Championships in 2016? I think they have a chance to do so.
Panama 2018 World Cup Betting Prediction
- FIFA Ranking: 55
- Coach: Hernán Darío Gómez
- Top Player: Blas Pérez
- First World Cup: 2018
- 2018 World Cup Odds to Win: +80000
This will be the first-ever appearance at the World Cup for Panama, and it’s fair to suggest that the draw did them no favors at all. They will play in Group G alongside England, Belgium, and Tunisia. This is a team that came out of Hex qualifying by winning on the very last day, and they only made it in because of a weird “phantom” goal and a sub-par performance by the USA in their final game.
Panama is in, and they are going to make the most of it. Their best players are all up there in age, but they also have a good crop of young talent who will be out to make a name for themselves on the world’s biggest football stage. The question here, though, is whether this team is good enough to navigate what is an incredibly tough group.
Panama could certainly beat Tunisia, and will definitely need to if they are to move on. That means that they will need to get something from their games against Belgium and England. That seems like too big an ask for me, as I see them losing both of those games and going out at the group stage.
