Portugal vs Croatia Predictions

The first International break of the season commences this week with plenty of interesting fixtures set to take over from the league action. One of which is a fascinating UEFA Nations League battle between Portugal and Croatia.

Portugal vs Croatia Key Stats

• Portugal have only lost 1 of their last 6 games
• Croatia haven’t won any of their last 3 matches
• Portugal have scored 8 goals in their last 6 fixtures
• Croatia have conceded 9 goals in their last 6 matches

Portugal vs Croatia Previous Meetings

Since 1996, these two nations have played each other on 8 different occasions.

Portugal have the advantage in this fixture having won 6 of those games. Croatia only winning 1. There has also been 1 draw.

Despite that the 1 win that Croatia have came in the most recent match in a friendly before Euro 2024. The final score was 2-1 to Croatia with goals from Luka Modric and Ante Budimir cancelling out Diogo Jota’s strike.

Will the same thing happen here?

Portugal vs Croatia Team News & Predicted Lineups

Roberto Martinez has selected a very young squad for the upcoming friendlies choosing to bring Geovany Quenda, Renato Viega and Tiago Santos over Joao Cancelo, Danilo Pereira and Francisco Conceicao.

This is the first squad selection following the retirement of Pepe.

Croatia’s squad is without Domagoj Vida and Marcelo Brozovic. Interestingly though it is defensively where they have a lot of holes with head coach Zlatko Dalic suggesting that Marin Prongracic, Kristijan Jakic and Marko Pjaca could fill the spots in the backline.

Portugal - Diogo Costa, Diogo Dalot, Ruben Dias, Antonio Silva, Nuno Mendes, João Palhinha, Vitinha, Bernardo Silva, Bruno Fernandes, Rafael Leão, Cristiano Ronaldo

Croatia - Dominik Lavakovic, Marin Pongracic, Josip Sutalo, Josko Gvardiol, Borna Sosa, Luka Modric, Luka Sucic, Mateo Kovacic, Mario Pasalic, Andrej Kramaric, Luka Ivanusec

Portugal vs Croatia Player To Watch - Cristiano Ronaldo

It is hard to not select Cristiano Ronaldo when it comes to a player to watch whenever Portugal plays.

With the hosts expected to dominate in this match we would expect plenty of goals. And this season for Al Nassr already he has 4 goals in 4 games.

If anyone is going to impact this game it will be CR7.

Portugal vs Croatia Prediction

This match is sure to be a close fixture however we would expect Portugal to dominate at home.

This is not necessarily against this Croatia team who seem to have entered a period of new structure and adjustment. We can’t help but think coming up against a very good Portugal squad may just be too much for them at this point.

That is why our team of professional tipping experts are backing odds of 4/7 for Portugal To Win in this game. A £10 bet having the potential to return up to £15.71.

Where To Watch Portugal vs Croatia

This game is set to get underway on Thursday 5th September 2024 at 19:45 pm UK time. And in the UK you can check out all of the action live on DAZN with the appropriate subscription.