Croatia The Favourite To Win In World Cup Playoff Match

Published on November 6th, 2017 4:35 am EST
Written By: Dave Manuel
Everything will be on the line this week as eight teams - Croatia, Greece, Northern Ireland, Switzerland, Sweden, Italy, Denmark and Ireland - battle for Europe's final four World Cup spots.

It is getting done to the wire - after years of play, these eight teams will be playing for everything over the next week. Win and you head to the world's largest football tournament; lose and you head home, years of qualifying games proving to be for nothing.

One of those qualifying matches will see Croatia take on Greece, with the first game (in Croatia) taking place on Thursday, and the second leg taking place on Sunday.

To start: Croatia is considered to be the better club, as evidenced by these odds to qualify for the World Cup:

Croatia, 1.36
Greece, 3.25

That being said, Croatia isn't that big of a favourite, and anything can obviously happen over the next week.

Here are the odds for the first leg of the playoff, which is set to take place in Croatia:

Croatia, 1.39
Draw, 4.00
Greece, 9.5

Here are the five likeliest scores, according to the bookmakers:

Croatia 1-0, 5.00
Croatia 2-0, 5.5
Draw 0-0, 7.5
Draw 1-1, 8.0
Croatia 2-1, 9.00

Here are the five players who are most likely to score:

Mario Mandzukic, 2.5
Nikola Kalinic, 2.5
Andrej Kramaric, 2.75
Ante Rebic, 3.0
Duje Cop, 3.0

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Of the first set of playoff matches, Greece is the biggest underdog. Croatia certainly enjoys a talent advantage, while they will also be playing at home.

Can Greece pull off the upset, or will Croatia win as expected?