Qatar VS Senegal

Qatar challenge Senegal in this Group A clash at Al Thumama Stadium in Doha Friday evening Beijing time. I think everyone who follows football closely was shocked to see how bad Qatar were in against Ecuador! The quite good South American team were priced around 2.25-2.30 win with the biggest, sharpest bookmakers with the highest betting limits right before kickoff. This indicated that a relatively balanced match was on the cards but in reality everyone watching the game could see that there is a massive difference in class between the teams. As a result, live betting odds were quickly slashed even before Ecuador's first ”goal” but the VAR verdict, of course, was ”no goal” for Ecuador due to an offside in the build-up play. I have not seen any team being more disappointing (in terms of pre-match expectations) than Qatar for several years at international level. Qatar lacked absolutely everything needed to win a football game! They were slow, passive, had a poor structure and were too careful with the ball, physically very weak compared to the athletic Ecuadorians. However, the biggest surprise for me was the the fact that when the score was 0-1 or 0-2 it seemed like many of Qatar's players did not try/fight the way one would expect them to do when with everything still to play for! I was also disappointed on the way the home fans ”supported” their team. A big number or Qataris were seen leaving the stadium at halftime! Can you imagine Brazilian, English or Chinese fans to abandon their countrymen like that at 0-2? No, definitely not! Even so, the home advantage is still a factor we must take into consideration but I think it is smaller than many bettors, football journalists or the betting market believe..

There does not seem to be a true football culture in Qatar despite the small country having spent tens of billions of euros to build one and host this event.. The number of expected goals – a very useful statistic in general - does not fully illustrate the gap in Ecuador's favor on the pitch. The numbers were 0.39 for Qatar and 1.65 for the South Americans. Ecuador seemed to settle for the 2-0 lead in the second half and mainly aimed at controlling the events on the pitch and wee not aggressively trying to score more goals. As a result Qatar did get a few scoring chances – not too good ones though – but overall offense was their biggest weakness and I believe that to be the case here as well! Qatar's FIFA ranking is 50th but based on what I have seen from them – even before the Ecuador match - 75-80th would be a more realistic ranking. Qatar's ranking is inflated by many matches they have played against lowly opposition in the past couple of years and the Asian championship some three years ago is only a distant memory now! Beating teams like Panama and Honduras in friendly games does not excite me ahead of this massive challenge! In September they lost to Croatia U23 0-3 as well as 0-2 to Canada who are slightly worse than Senegal in my power rating that reflects the teams' pure class. Senegal's FIFA ranking is 18th which is perhaps a bit too high – at least at the moment, without Bayern Munich's super star Mane Senegal are not among the best 20 teams in the world but still massive better than Qatar in all areas of the game. They are even more athletic – faster and stronger on average than Ecuador's players. African teams are often pretty weak tactically compared to most European teams, the best South American and most top Asian countries' but Senegal, coached by the talented A. Cisse, are a smart and well-organized unit. Missing Mane is a major blow to Senegal but they have a big number of very good players who play for big – or even very big clubs like defender Kalidou Koulibaly (Chelsea) and midfielder Nampalys Mendy (Leicester). The Qatari's mainly have experience from Qatar Stars League which is of low-level especially in terms of tempo.. I think Mane's absence has been given too much emphasis by the bookies here and with him in the squad the odds would probably be around 1.35-1.40 for Senegal to win! Senegal were okay against the strong Netherlands in the first match and allowed Gakpo broke managed to score no earlier than in the 84th minute. The expected goals numbers were Netherlands 1.39 – Senegal 0.79. I do believe Qatar have some room for improvement but the Africans have a close to 70% chance to win here!

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卡塔尔VS塞内加尔

北京时间星期五晚上，在多哈的阿尔图马体育场，卡塔尔将在A组挑战塞内加尔。我想所有密切关注足球的人都震惊于卡塔尔在对阵厄瓜多尔时的糟糕表现!这支相当优秀的南美球队在开赛前被最大、最精明的博彩公司开出了2.25-2.30的胜率，并设置了最高的投注限额。这表明一场相对平衡的比赛是有可能的，但实际上，每个观看比赛的人都可以看到，两队之间存在巨大的阶级差异。结果，在厄瓜多尔的第一个“进球”之前，现场博彩赔率就被迅速削减了，但VAR的判决，当然是厄瓜多尔“没有进球”，因为在准备过程中越位。多年来，我从未见过任何一支球队比卡塔尔更令人失望(就赛前预期而言)。卡塔尔完全缺乏赢得一场足球比赛所需的一切!他们速度慢，被动，结构差，控球太小心，与运动能力强的厄瓜多尔人相比，他们的身体非常虚弱。然而，最让我惊讶的是，当比分是0-1或0-2时，许多卡塔尔球员似乎并没有像人们期望的那样去尝试/战斗，因为他们还有很多事情要做!我也对主队球迷“支持”他们球队的方式感到失望。很多卡塔尔人在中场休息时离开了球场!你能想象巴西、英国或中国的球迷在0-2的情况下抛弃他们的同胞吗?不，绝对不是!即便如此，主场优势仍然是我们必须考虑的一个因素，但我认为它比许多投注者、足球记者或博彩市场认为的要小。

尽管卡塔尔这个小国花费了数百亿欧元来建设足球文化，并举办了这次盛会，但在卡塔尔似乎并没有真正的足球文化。一般来说，预期进球数是一个非常有用的统计数据，但这并不能完全说明厄瓜多尔在球场上的优势。卡塔尔为0.39，南美为1.65。下半场厄瓜多尔似乎满足于2-0的领先，他们的主要目标是控制球场上的局势，并没有积极地试图获得更多的进球。结果卡塔尔确实获得了一些得分机会——虽然不是很好——但整体进攻是他们最大的弱点，我相信在这里也是如此!卡塔尔在国际足联的排名是第50位，但根据我对他们的观察——甚至在与厄瓜多尔的比赛之前——第75-80位才是更现实的排名。卡塔尔队的排名由于过去几年与实力较弱的对手的多次比赛而被夸大，大约三年前的亚洲冠军现在已成为遥远的记忆!在友谊赛中击败巴拿马和洪都拉斯这样的球队并没有让我在面对这个巨大的挑战之前感到兴奋!9月，他们0-3输给了U23克罗地亚，0-2输给了加拿大，在我的实力评价中，加拿大比塞内加尔略差，这反映了这支球队纯粹的水平。塞内加尔在国际足联的排名是第18位，这可能有点太高了——至少在目前，没有了拜仁慕尼黑的超级球星马内，塞内加尔并不是世界上最好的20支球队之一，但在比赛的各个领域都比卡塔尔强得多。他们甚至更有运动能力——平均起来比厄瓜多尔的球员更快更强壮。与大多数欧洲球队、南美洲最好的球队和亚洲最顶尖的球队相比，非洲球队在战术上往往相当薄弱，但由天才西塞(a . Cisse)执教的塞内加尔是一支聪明且组织良好的球队。马内的缺席对塞内加尔来说是一个重大打击，但他们有很多非常优秀的球员效力于豪门，比如后卫卡利杜·库利巴利(切尔西)和中场南帕利斯·门迪(莱斯特)。卡塔尔人主要有卡塔尔球星联赛的经验，这是低水平的，特别是在节奏方面。我认为马内的缺席被这里的博彩公司过于强调了，如果他入选，塞内加尔夺冠的赔率可能在1.35-1.40左右!塞内加尔在对阵荷兰队的第一场比赛中表现不错，让贾克波在第84分钟之前就取得进球。预期进球数是荷兰1.39，塞内加尔0.79。我确实相信卡塔尔还有改进的空间，但非洲人有接近70%的机会在这里获胜!