Currently looking at good bets for the World Cup and was wondering if anyone had any good suggestions lined up?
I've been going over the potential golden boot winners for a few days, and I think I have found some good opportunities. I like the golden boot because there's usually good money to be had if you look beyond the most obvious names (who rarely end up winning anyway). Historically six goals has been enough to win the golden boot most tournaments, and the bookies tend to make payouts if multiple players end up with the same tally. I punted a fair bit of money on Diego Forlan in 2010 for example and got a big payout, and I think there are similar opportunities this year.
First of all I don't think Mbappe or Kane or Haaland are going to win. I don't trust England and France while Norway is poor, and they all have some tricky fixtures that don't look like big goal fests to me. These players also have odds that are too low to bother with relative to the risks.
I think I've found some better opportunities:
Germany will be facing Curacao, Ecuador and Ivory Coast, for instance. They should beat all three and advance far into the tournament. Only issue is that they have no prolific strikers. At all. I don't even know who they're putting forward. Then again it was a similar story in 2010 and Thomas Müller won it that year. Maybe a punt on Sane or Woltemade?
The second team I like is Spain, who are playing Cape Verde, Saudi Arabia and Uruguay. Again, they should win against all three and advance deep into the tournament, and here I think the best goalscorer bet of the tournament can be found. Yamal is not going to be fit and even if he is he's not a central player, and that just leaves Mikel Oyarzabal as the main man to center an attack around. Fully expect this cat to score 4+ goals. He's not even in the top 5 most likely winners on most betting sites, which is just insane to me.
I've also found two wild cards. The first one is Neymar. Brazil should score a healthy tally in a group with Morocco, Scotland and Haiti, and they haven't got any other centreforwards basically. Neymar is washed up and has fitness concerns but Ancelotti clearly picked him because he intends to use him. This will be his final performance at the big stage and I think he'll rise to the occasion. The Salvatore Schillaci of the World Cup 2026?
Second wild card is Viktor Gyökeres, and I think it's actually a decent punt even though I'm biased. Sweden literally have no one else. Isak is unfit and he never scores in the national team anyway, and the rest of the lot have very few goals in them. Potter is building a good team with sparse material though and he has centered it around getting the best out of his sole top class player in Gyökeres, who also takes penalties and the odd freekick. In a group with Tunisia, Japan and Netherlands there should be 4-5 goals for Sweden and it wouldn't surprise me if he scored most of them. Sweden won't go far in the tournament, but they might make it two more games past the group stage with a bit of luck, and there could be further goals.
My favourite golden boot bets would probably be:
- Oyarzabal
- Neymar
- One of the Germans
- Gyökeres
Any other ideas?
