Score prediction: China's World Cup hopes fade away

Dự đoán tỉ số: Trung Quốc xa dần hy vọng dự World Cup - Ảnh 1. — The Chinese team's performance is unstable - Photo: XHN

Before the 7th match, China ranked last in Group C with 6 points. However, the 3rd place team, Indonesia, only had the same number of points (better in the secondary index), while the 2nd place team, Australia, also only had 7 points.

China had a terrible start in the third round of the World Cup qualifiers, losing all three of their first matches. However, two consecutive victories against Bahrain and Indonesia revived Ivankovic's hopes of winning a ticket, before they lost to Japan in the most recent match.

In the first leg, China played a terrible match against Saudi Arabia. At home, China opened the scoring in the 14th minute, and in the 19th minute, they had one more player when Kanno from Saudi Arabia was sent off.

But then China lost 1-2 to the surprise of home fans. That poor performance made bookmakers believe that China would be "overwhelmed" again when playing away at Saudi Arabia.

Bookmakers give Saudi Arabia a handicap of 1.25 goals for the whole match, and a handicap of 0.5 goals in the first half. The over/under ratio for the whole match is 2.5 goals, and in the first half it is 1 goal.

This is a pretty high handicap for a team with poor form like Saudi Arabia. Compared to their ambition and class, Saudi Arabia's performance in the 2026 World Cup qualifiers is too poor. They are only equal in points to China, only ranked higher thanks to a better sub-index.

Saudi Arabia have scored just one goal in their last three home games. Poor home form is also a reason for their decline.

However, against an unstable China, Saudi Arabia is expected to regain its form. In the last 8 confrontations, Saudi Arabia won 4, drew 3 and lost only 1.

Prediction: Saudi Arabia to win 1-0 at half-time, 3-1 on aggregate.

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HUY DANG