Argentina vs Iceland Prediction & Betting Tips - World Cup

Prediction published on 11/06/2018, 14:00  by Valeria Di Meglio | Modified on 18/06/2018 at 04:40 in World Cup Predictions

After years of being World Cup minnows, Iceland have made fantastic strides in the past decade. They qualified for their first ever European Championships in 2016 and went on to reach the quarter finals with that memorable win over England in the last sixteen. It was important that they built on that success and that's just what they have done by reaching their first ever World Cup finals. They did so by winning their group by two points from Croatia who they will again do battle with later in this group. It was their home form that got them to Russia with five wins out of five and only two on the road but reaching these finals is a massive achievement for them. Current form sees Iceland with big problems as they have gone four games without a win and conceded 11 goals in those matches, not the form you need when going up against Lionel Messi. Their final warm-up game saw them draw 2-2 with Ghana giving away a two-goal lead. At least that draw ended a run of three straight defeats by Mexico, Peru and Norway. At least they have a striker in form with Alfred Finnbogason having scored in theiir last two internationals. 

Argentina usually come into World Cups as one of the favourites to lift the trophy but at this point it's a case of waiting to see just how well they start the tournament before making any decisions to place any money on them. The Argentinians may have Messi but they still haven't won the World Cup since 1986 and this is surely the strikers last chance to get a World Cup winners medal. They very nearly didn't make it to Russia after struggling to get through the South American qualifying group. Eventually they finished third with Lionel Messi scoring a hat-trick in their final game against Ecuador. Argentina lost four games in the group and defeat in that final group match would have seen them finish seventh and out of the World Cup. Life since they finally assured qualification hasn't been that easy either. Last November they had a couple of games in Russia beating the home nation 1-0 iwith Aguero getting the winner four minutes from time, then ttok on Nigeria, went 2-0 up and lost 4-2.  The inconsistencies continued with a 2-0 win over Italy in March followed by a 6-1 beating by Spain. Their only recent game was a 4-0 win over Haiti with Lionel Messi scoring a hat-trick. Their strength is in attack with Messi, Aguero and Higuain having scored 132 international goals between them. The big worries are in defence and especially in goal with their three named goalies for this tournament only having nine caps between them and first choice Willy Caballero spent most of his season sitting on the bench at Chelsea.  Argentina have the ability to win this game against an out-of-form Iceland so go for them to get the win.