Brazil Favoured to Win Group A
Published on April 9th, 2014 2:23 pm ESTWith the World Cup just a few months away, it is time to start breaking down the odds for each of the eight World Cup groups.
Let's start with Group A which features this year's host country, Brazil. Now, Brazil is currently favoured to win the entire tournament (4.00 to win), so it should be no surprise to hear that they are also favoured to win Group A.
Group A consists of these four teams:
Brazil
Croatia
Mexico
Cameroon
Brazil automatically qualified for the tournament due to the fact that they are hosting this year. Croatia earned their spot after finishing in second place of Group A of UEFA qualifying and subsequently beating Iceland in a playoff match. Mexico qualified after finishing in fourth place in CONCACAF and beating New Zealand 9-3 in a playoff match. Cameroon earned their spot by beating Tunisia 4-1 in one of five CAF qualifying matches.
Brazil and Croatia are set to play in the World Cup's very first match, which is interesting because these are the two teams that are expected to advance from the group.
Here are the current betting odds for the winner of Group A:
Brazil, 1.25
Croatia, 6.50
Mexico, 8.00
Cameroon, 26.00
As you can see, Brazil is the clear favourite to win the group, as a $100 wager on them winning would yield you a total return of just $25.
The real interesting battle will be to see who qualifies from the group - here are those odds:
Brazil, 1.02
Croatia, 1.83
Mexico, 2.10
Cameroon, 6.00
Croatia and Mexico are expected to battle hard for the #2 spot in the group - it goes without saying that the Croatia/Mexico game has massive importance for both teams. Cameroon, on the other hand, is considered more of an underdog.
Assuming that Brazil does qualify, here are the rest of the odds for each of the possible tandems to move forward from Group A:
Brazil/Croatia, 2.50
Brazil/Mexico, 2.75
Brazil/Cameroon, 8.00
Croatia/Brazil, 9.00
Mexico/Brazil, 15.00
Cameroon/Brazil, 51.00
So if you believe that Cameroon will win the group while Brazil will finish second, this would pay out at 51.00.
