EURO 2024: The Ultra previews Tuesday’s semi-final between SPAIN v FRANCE with a recommended BETDAQ bet.
SPAIN v FRANCE
8pm The Euro 2024 Semi-Finals arrive on BETDAQ BETTING EXCHANGE , and we have two wonderful fixtures starting on Tuesday. When the Group stage was finished the top half of the draw was exceptionally tough, however if you were picking the top two sides to meet in the Semi-Final it would have been Spain and France. Spain have played the best football of the tournament and they are definitely the form team. France have definitely stumbled through the tournament to this stage, but obviously they have immense talent within their squad and there’s no question that they can produce a wonderful performance if they turn up.
France definitely didn’t turn up against Portugal. The overwhelming feeling after that game was that Portugal had a golden chance for an upset and they didn’t take it. A lot was made about Ronaldo’s poor performance, and to be honest it’s easy to read between the lines to see Ronaldo definitely calls the shots in the Portugal set-up – he could have easily been taken off in the second half. While there was a lot of debate around the Ronaldo performance, Mbappe was just as poor and that went under the radar. Possibly the broken nose is bothering him or playing in the mark – either way he hasn’t been good enough for France and they badly need a world class performance from him here.
We had an exceptionally open betting heat for Spain v Germany in the Quarter-Finals, and we have another very open betting heat here. Spain are the favourites at 2.74 with France 3.25 and the draw is 3.0 at the time of writing. Spain also come into the Semi-Finals as tournament favourites behind England, who really haven’t played well at Euro 2024 but somehow have got to the Semi-Final! Spain were the only side that won all three of their Group games, and then they got a pretty easy Last 16 game against Georgia which they won easily. They actually conceded more than they created against Germany, and from a German point of view you could say that they were a little unlucky. Spain still have an average xG created of over 2.0 and an average conceded of under 1.0 at Euro 2024 though and that is immensely impressive.
France have really struggled to score goals at this tournament. It’s not a case of they aren’t creating any though – they have actually got an non-penalty xG of over 8.0 and have yet to score. That’s an incredible stat. It’s not like England where they just aren’t creating chances; France are playing good football and creating chances, just aren’t taking them. As I said above, they really need Mbappe to do something wonderful. At the end of the day, these type of games are made for big game players. We should have a high quality game here, but there’s no getting away from the fact that when you get to this level things can get very cagey. We saw that between Portugal and France, especially in the first half. The market is expecting a reasonably cagey game again because Under 2.5 goals is trading 1.6.
It’s no surprise to see a very open match odds market, and we should have a very close game here. Both sides finished the 90 minutes in the Quarter-Finals with a draw, and that’s going to be a very popular bet at 3.0. I was confident on Spain against Germany; I know France aren’t taking their chances but their xG figures are good enough to put me off the Spain bet here. There’s no doubt that they are playing the best tournament, but it’s also hard to argue that they should be massively shorter than 2.74 given the quality France have in their squad. Everything points to another cagey game here in my opinion, and I feel there is still value in Under 2.5 goals at 1.6. I wouldn’t be surprised to see another penalty shootout after a very tight game.
The Ultra Says:
Three points win Under 2.5 goals at 1.6 with BETDAQ BETTING EXCHANGE.
You can view all markets here -> https://betdaq.biz/SpaFra
