Russia V Croatia Predictions & Betting Odds

Russia v Croatia Betting Preview – World Cup 2018 7th July – 3.00 p.m

Surprisingly Russia have created their own success story at the tournament as they caused one of the biggest shocks of the 2018 World Cup by eliminating Spain via a penalty shoot-out in the last round. Can they take a journey step further by seeing off Croatia? Croatia also needed a penalty shootout to make it past their round of 16 tie against Denmark. After looking so very good in the group stage Croatia really looked flat in that round of 16 tie. Still our Russia v Croatia predictions sees the extra quality of Croatia pulling through.

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Russia News and Form

So the Russians have arrived in the quarter finals of the 2018 World Cup totally against the odds. Heading into the tournament there was no expectancy surrounding them as they were simply out of form, not having won in seven games. They opened the 2018 World Cup with back to back wins so qualified for the knockout stage immediately and their final group stage loss against Uruguay didn’t matter. But they were drawn against Spain in the first knockout stage and they were heavy underdogs for that game. But they had a simple game plan of parking the bus and it worked. They took their chance in the penalty shootout. To open our Russia v Croatia predictions under 2.5 goals looks an obvious place to go to and that is at 19/40 odds* (betting odds taken from July 3rd, 2018 at 00:57 a.m.). They spent a lot of energy in defending their way to that victory against Spain but the cost of that is that a great deal will have been taken out of them.

Russia are now W2 D2 L2 in their last six games and they have collected just the one clean sheet in their last twelve games. They are going as underdogs here once again and it will be interesting to see if they can find the defensive levels against Croatia that they produced against Spain. A both teams not to score option at 8/13 odds* (betting odds taken from July 3rd, 2018 at 00:57 a.m.) for our Russia v Croatia predictions and that is because we don’t see Russia producing a lot of attacking threat against a well-organised Croatia side. The Russians have taken only three wins in their last twelve games (D4 L5) over 90 minutes and it is average at best opposition that they have beaten. They have only managed to score more than one goal in four of their last twelve matches. Fedor Smolov and Artem Dzyuba are joint 2/1 anytime goalscorer options for them going into this one* (betting odds taken from July 3rd, 2018 at 00:57 a.m.).

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Croatia News and Form

Croatia didn’t quite hit the high quality that they had produced in the group stage as they took on Denmark in the World Cup round of sixteen. They were really conservative and flat and just seemed to totally tighten up. Maybe it was all down to the pressure of the situation but they did get through it. They are the stronger of the two sides going into this quarter-final tie but based on their performance in the last match we are looking at a Croatia 1-0 correct score option at 5/1* (betting odds taken from July 3rd, 2018 at 00:57 a.m.). The Croatians are not really going to give up too much at the back and they have kept two clean sheets in their last four games. They are W4 D1 in their last five games played (90 minutes) and they scored at least two goals in each of those four victories in that sequence. But we are suggesting for our Russia v Croatia predictions that this is going to be a tighter, low scoring game and it is not worth looking bigger in the correct score market. This is the quarter finals of a World Cup after all.

Croatia are favourites for this game so there will be that extra pressure on them. Luka Modric, with two goals, is their top scorer at the tournament so far and he has been one of the stand out performers of the entire tournament so he is worth a look in the anytime goalscorer market. Mario Mandzukic is at 5/1 in the first goalscorer market for this fixture* (betting odds taken from July 3rd, 2018 at 00:57 a.m.) and he got their somewhat lucky goal against Denmark in the last round. Croatia are carrying strong form with eight wins in their last thirteen matches, suffering just the two defeats along the way. In terms of quality, Croatia are head and shoulders above Russia and should be able to control this game from the midfield. They have to step up and be better than they were against Denmark when the key players just didn’t perform. Croatia finished third back in the 1998 World Cup and with the draw ahead, there’s a decent chance that they could get close to at least replicating that. At the time of writing they had been moved into 6/1 odds* (betting odds taken from July 3rd, 2018 at 00:57 a.m.) to win the World Cup outright.

Russia v Croatia Head to Head

This will be just the fourth meeting between Russia and Croatia. The first two meetings were both 0-0 ties which were in the Euro 2008 qualifiers. Their other game was a friendly meeting in Russia back in 2015 and Croatia cruised to a 3-1 victory in the game, Mario Mandzukic getting Croatia’s last goal.

Russia v Croatia Betting Odds*

Croatia 5/4
Draw 21/10
Russia 29/10
* (Betting Odds were taken from bet365 on July 2nd, 2018 at 6:13 p.m.)