WORLD CUP PREVIEW Sun: France v Poland

Kicking Sunday’s Round of 16 action off will be Didier Deschamps’ France side, who will be looking to overcome a Polish team that snuck through to the knockouts by the skin of their teeth.

Despite a second placed finish appearing a fair return on paper in their group with Argentina, Poland will be well aware that they’ll need to offer significantly more in order to even have a chance of progressing to the Quarter Finals. Standing in their way is the juggernaut that is France, led by bonafide superstar Kylian Mbappe. Their 1-0 loss to Tunisia on Matchday 3 might’ve looked underwhelming, but with the added context that they made numerous changes, the French stars being well rested for this game looks ominous for the Poles.

France v Poland
FIFA World Cup 2022 Last-16
3pm BBC One,BBC iPlayer,BBC Sport Website

HEAD-TO-HEAD
NOV 1994 EURO CHAMPIONSHIPS Poland 0-0 France
AUG 1995 EURO CHAMPIONSHIPS France 1-1 Poland
FEB 2000 INTERNATIONAL FRIENDLY France 1-0 Poland
NOV 2004 INTERNATIONAL FRIENDLY France 0-0 Poland
JUN 2011 INTERNATIONAL FRIENDLY Poland 0-1 France

FRANCE
SEP 2022 NATIONS LEAGUE France 2-0 Austria
SEP 2022 NATIONS LEAGUE Denmark 2-0 France
NOV 2022 WORLD CUP France 4-1 Australia
NOV 2022 WORLD CUP France 2-1 Denmark
NOV 2022 WORLD CUP Tunisia 1-0 France

POLAND
SEP 2022 NATIONS LEAGUE Wales 0-1 Poland
NOV 2022 INTERNATIONAL FRIENDLY Poland 1-0 Chile
NOV 2022 WORLD CUP 0-0 Poland
NOV 2022 WORLD CUP Poland 2-0 Saudi Arabia
NOV 2022 WORLD CUP Poland 0-2 Argentina

There appears to be little value in the Win/Draw/Win market with France sitting at 3/10, so it’s with Mbappe where I’d like to start. The PSG attacker is in worryingly good form and 23/10 with starsports.bet for him to score first in the tie looks to represent very good value. Olivier Giroud at 14/5 is the other name in that market that could be worth consideration, but Mbappe is central to everything the French do going forward. If he’s got the ball you know he’s going to be direct and go at his marker, and if he’s feeding off the creativity around him he’s got that natural goalscorer’s instinct of being in the right place at the right time.

There’s always the temptation to look at the 8/1 available on Robert Lewandowski in the same market, the Pole remains one of the top goalscorers in the world, but it’s difficult to foresee a situation where Poland are seeing enough of the ball for him to score the opener, the 16/5 price on him to score Any Time is considerably shorter but seems the better pick if you fancy his quality to tell at some point.

I do fancy the French to control this game after watching Poland closely during the group stages, so I think there are a number of avenues to explore off the back of this. One of those is the Handicap market, with France -2 sitting at 5/2 with starsports.bet, that might seem like a steep ask but with the firepower they have available it’ll only take an early French goal to open the game right up.

In the Half-Time – Full-Time market there’s also 10/11 available on France/France. In a game I fully expect them to dominate this looks like it could be excellent value, as with the handicap market it’ll take just the one early France goal for Poland to come out and play, leaving acres of space for the likes of Mbappe and Ousmane Dembele to exploit on the counter attack. You can also get 21/20 on France to win and over 2.5 goals with starsports.bet, another excellent price to cover off France’s attacking flair and Poland’s lack thereof.

DAN BUTLER

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RECOMMENDED BETS

BACK FRANCE TO WIN AND OVER 2.5 GOALS 2pts at 11/10 (Latest Star Price ? CLICK TO BET NOW)
BACK FRANCE -2 2pts at 13/5 (Latest Star Price ? CLICK TO BET NOW)

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PROFIT/LOSS (WORLD CUP 2022): LOSS 24.78 points (after matches on Sat 3 Dec, includes TWO GOOD bonus on CAMEROON v SERBIA 28 Nov)
(Will include returns from both the OUTRIGHT and SPECIALS previews too)

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