WORLD: Friendly International
Date: 09-06-21
Time: 7:45 PM
Venue: Estádio José Alvalade (Lisbon)
Heading into this final friendly fixture, Portugal will be satisfied with their preparations for Euro 2020 after going undefeated across their previous five matches (W3, D2) and scoring 2+ goals in three. That run looks set to continue for the current European champions as they’ve lost only one of their last five H2H meetings with Israel (W2, D2), and that came back in 1981.
Only world champions France have travelled to Portugal and beaten Fernando Santos’ men across their last 17 matches on home soil (W10, D6, L1), and with clean sheets in the four home games either side of that 1-0 defeat to France (W3, D1), it’s likely visitors Israel will face a tough job when it comes to breaching Portugal’s goal.
There’ll be no Euro 2020 adventure for Israel this summer after their penalty shootout qualifying defeat to Scotland back in October ended their hopes of a first-ever Euro finals appearance. But after scoring 3+ goals in their previous two matches (W2), they could potentially trouble Portugal’s sturdy defence, albeit both victories came vs sides ranked outside FIFA’s top 40. In fact they’ve won just one of their previous six games vs teams ranked #40 or better (D1, L4), failing to score more than a single goal in five of those encounters.
To their credit though, the visitors have won more away games across their last four fixtures on foreign soil (W3, L1) than they managed in their 13 away trips prior. Strikingly, nine of their ten goals scored across that four-game sequence arrived after HT.
Players to watch: Liverpool forward Diogo Jota has netted three goals before HT across his last three Portugal appearances, but will face competition to score first from Eran Zahavi, who has opened the scoring for Israel in their previous two matches.
Recent Stats:
- Portugal’s form in last 5 matches: DWDWW.
- Israel’s form in last 5 matches: WWDLW
PREDICTION: Home/Draw and Over 1.5
