Olympic men’s soccer tournament, quarter-finals, Thursday, 02.08.2024 at 17:00
What the young Spanish squad has to offer is sheer madness. Only players aged 23 or under are allowed at the Olympic Games. Nevertheless, the squad, peppered with stars from Barcelona, Atletico and the like, brings together an enormous star ensemble.
The 1992 Olympic champions are aiming for their next gold medal. An interesting match awaits against Japan. The land of the rising sun has won all three of its group games and has yet to concede a goal. In addition, the Olympic triumph has a much higher significance for the East Asians.
Nevertheless, I think that Spain will prevail in the end. The odds at Betano are still temptingly high at 1.50.
We haven’t just known since the Olympic Games that squad value isn’t everything. After all, the main task in Paris is to develop a functioning system from a motley crew of young, inexperienced players in the shortest possible time.
The Spanish U23s went into their first group game in Paris without a test match and had a tough time against Uzbekistan, the heavy underdogs. In the end, they came away with a 2:1 victory, followed by a 3:1 win against the Dominican Republic
This secured their progress. Head coach Santi Denia therefore gave many more young players minutes of experience in the final group game against Egypt and shuffled the line-up. The result was a 2:1 defeat against the Africans.
Spain will now face the winners of Group D, who have yet to lose a match, but also played at least one test against the French Olympic team before the Olympic Games. After the 1-1 draw in the test, they went on to win three matches without conceding a goal in Paris
The Japanese have definitely made an impression, which is also reflected in the odds. At 3.90, they are not too much of an outsider. Spain have been assigned a 1.98 by Betano.
This opens up the possibility of betting on Spain to progress at 1.50 odds. After all, the Spaniards played the first two matches with the same line-up and were able to practise their tactics with the A-team for two more days.
In addition, the coach was able to rest players for the knockout phase in the last match due to the starting position in the table. But Japan were also able to leave some players on the bench in the final match
Japan’s U23 team started with a 5:0 win against Paraguay, followed by two 1:0 victories against Mali and Israel to round off a perfect group stage. However, the Group D winners were only clearly better against Paraguay.
In the win against Mali, a goal was conceded in stoppage time and the opponents missed the opportunity to level the game from the spot. Spain will definitely be a different proposition
Starting difficulties against Uzbekistan, a showpiece performance against the Dominican Republic. Denia will be relying on a similar line-up against Japan.
The European champions will play a 4-2-3-1 as they did at the European Championships. Japan will also fall back on the established formation of today’s soccer generation.
Koki Sato from Lommel SK is still the best-known player in the squad, which contains just three players with a transfer value of at least one million euros
Some interesting bets await the Spaniards at Betano. In addition to the win after 90 minutes and the “Spain to score” bet, I think the “Spain to score” odds of 1.26 for a combined ticket on Friday are great. A 2.15 is waiting for the Spanish double strike.
On average, the Spanish team scores two goals per match. Betano not only has an enormous selection of odds in its repertoire, but can also convince with a nice offer for new customers, which includes a 20 euro free bet without deposit.
Betano flexes its muscles with high odds, especially on goal markets. The classic “Over 2.5 goals” brings 2.25 on the betting slip, the stake is quadrupled for at least four goals.
An eye-catcher is the 1.95 for both teams to score. Japan have scored in every match so far, Spain have got one in every time, but have scored themselves every time. Spoilt for choice in this Olympic soccer quarter-final
Conclusion: The second group game showed that the Spaniards are now well into their Olympic rhythm with the A eleven. If they bring their quality to the pitch, they will be hard to beat by the Japanese. The group win reads more dominant than it actually was.
They were lucky twice in stoppage time against Mali. Spain are also likely to have an enormous amount of possession again and hardly let Japan get a chance. I expect the difference in class to become apparent in extra time at the latest.
My Japan Spain tip: Spain will progress
