World Cup Betting: Mexico vs. Cameroon

The World Cup will get underway tomorrow and ramp up to a full schedule later this week. In this write up we’ll take a look at a Friday matchup between Mexico and Cameroon. Basically, this is a must win game for both teams since the presumptive winner of Group A will be the host country Brazil. That means that the team that wins this game will have the inside track at second place and a better shot to advance.

Mexico is a very talented though somewhat erratic team. They looked great when they started their exhibition warm ups to get ready for the World Cup beating Israel 3-0 and Ecuador 3-0. They lost their next two games by identical 1-0 scores against Portugal and Bosnia. Mexico has an attack oriented offense that will push tempo in hopes their many talented finishers can score goals. Oribe Peralta is arguably their most potent goal scorer–he had 10 goals during the World Cup qualification campaign–but there are several players up front who can score.

Cameroon has been in the news lately for all of the wrong reasons–the team refused to get on the plane to fly to Brazil until their bonus structure was renegotiated. Doesn’t really say much for team chemistry, now does it? Cameroon didn’t look particularly impressive in either their qualification efforts or their warm up games. Cameroon has some talented players on their roster but they’re not particularly well coached or tactically adept.

As is usually the case with opening games in World Cup play we expect this one to be played tentatively with both teams showing a lot of caution in the interest of avoiding a loss. That being said, it’s more imperative for Mexico to get a win out of this game than Cameroon. Mexico appears to be the better coached and tactically sound side and we can’t overemphasize the bonus fiasco involving the Cameroon team. That doesn’t exactly suggest a team that has a lot of focus or chemistry and it seems that their minds are on any number of things except playing soccer. Look for Mexico to win in a low scoring game.

BET MEXICO +130 OVER CAMEROON
BET MEXICO/CAMEROON UNDER 2 -110