Football Previews
Panama and Martinique clash this Thursday evening (Friday morning in Europe) at the CenturyLink Field in Seattle in their second game of the CONCACAF Gold Cup.
Panama defeated a weakened Mexican side (2:1) in their opening game.
Fabrice Reuperné scored a magnificent goal for Martinique in the dying seconds to give Martinique all 3 points in their opening match against Canada.
Tuesday saw Costa Rica defeat Cuba 3:0 and USA dominate lowly Belize 6:1.
Recent form:
Panama – W L L D L W D
Martinique – W L L W D W D
Panama have lost 3 of their last 7 while Martinique have lost 2 in 7.
Group A looks like this:
Mexico meet Canada at 04:00 GMT+1 in a game both sides must win. Mexico are strong favourites with bookmakers to overcome Canada (4/9 odds).
A win for either Panama or Martinique will almost ensure passage through to the next stage of the tournament.
These two sides haven’t met competitively in recent years so there is no form to go on.
Bookmakers side strongly with Panama in this tie.
Current betting odds: Panama (7/10) Draw (5/2) Martinique (17/4)
Gamingtips Prediction – Panama 2:0 Martinique
Although Panama are strong favourites with bookmakers, prior to defeating Mexico 2:1, they had scored just 1 goal in their previous 4 games (CONCACAF qualifying matches) and so it’s difficult to know whether we will see the same Panama side who created chances against Mexico or the same Panama who scored just one goal in 360 minutes of football.
Panama looked very useful against Mexico however they may have been flattered against a side who sourced their team from the Mexican league and lacked their usual star quality players.
Martinique were very fortunate to get 3 points from their match against Canada – Canada dominated the game for long periods and were unfortunate not to score on several occasions.
In Martinique’s last 5 matches, 3 have ended either 0:0 or 1:1.
Martinique didn’t look like scoring against Canada and were forced to defend for long periods and so this match will ultimately come down to whether or not Panama can effectively break down Martinique or if Martinique can score on the counterattack.
Alternative value bets could be 0:0 (7/1) and 1:1 (11/2) in the correct score market.
This game gets underway at 01:30 GMT+1 and can be viewed live on ESPN HD (UK). International listings will vary.
Online stream – (must have a funded account in order to view)
Alternatively you can keep up to date via our livescores page
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