England feature in a tasty treble to top their World Cup group
Published:You can almost smell it now can’t you? The number of days until the World Cup ticker tape comes down have finally reached single digits, which means time is running thin on maximising prospective profits on juicy pre-tournament odds.
Below, Christian Crowther handpicks a treble of potential group winners which would pay out handsomely at a shade over 7/1 if successful.
At these odds, backing the holders and dominant force in world football over the past three major tournaments to prevail as a single bet doesn’t sufficiently whet the whistle.
Despite the Spanish being lumped with a seemingly treacherous group containing Holland and Chile, in the context of a treble it could be gold dust.
As expected, Sergio Ramos and co pipped the French to top their qualification group and have also made the knock-out stages as group winners at all of the last three major tournaments.
For the first time in a long time, England’s World Cup trail has been greeted with measured optimism rather than grossly misguided expectation, especially given the amount of young talent Roy Hodgson has selected.
There’s no doubt that Italy and Uruguay will provide stern opposition, but the fact Italy are only deemed mild 13/8 favourites for supremacy shows England have a great chance.
The Three Lions topped a difficult group at Euro 2012 and were only prevented from repeating the feat at the last World Cup by virtue of goals scored.
The Germans have reached more World Cup finals than any other nation and as such are the most-fancied European team to arrive on Brazilian shores at 5/1 for ultimate glory.
Although Portugal are big rivals to their Group G supremacy, there is no other nation with such a formidable first-stage record at World Cup finals as Germany either.
They’ve topped the preliminary standings in six consecutive tournaments, losing only one of their last the 18 matches in the group stages.
All Odds and Markets are correct as of the date of publishing.
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