France has been banging in the goals during their pre-World Cup friendlies even with influential winger Franck Ribery sidelined with injury. Les Bleus must now prove they can still score when it actually counts as they take on Honduras, a country some football experts predicted would finish runner-up in Group E, to kick off their World Cup campaign.
Ribery had been earmarked as one of France’s key players in our Group E preview. Can Honduras eek out the win against a shorthanded French side? Grab a win of your own when you take 30 seconds to enter our $500 World Cup contest, and read on to see how the Group E action will kick off.
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France vs. Honduras, World Cup 2014, Group Stage Betting Preview and Prediction
Group E favorites France were dealt a huge blow with the loss of their talented winger Franck Ribery to a back injury. But based on their three warm-up matches, manager Didier Deschamps will not be short of attacking options in Brazil.
[sc:Soccer240banner ]Les Bleus scored 13 goals against Norway, Paraguay and Jamaica, with forwards Olivier Giroud and Antoine Griezmann each scoring three goals. Griezmann had a goal-rate very similar to Ribery’s (16 league goals in 34 games in La Liga compared to Ribery’s 10 in 22 Bundesliga games this season) and looks like a tailor-made replacement for the Bayern star in the starting line-up.
Up front, Giroud will likely make way for Karim Benzema, who also scored twice in their 8-0 thrashing of Jamaica. But should France be in search of a goal late in the game, Deschamps has the luxury of calling upon another in-form striker as a substitute to put pressure on a tiring Honduran defense.
Midfielders Yohan Cabaye and Blaise Matuidi also got on the scoresheet against Jamaica. With those two and Paul Pogba forming an imposing midfield three, France should easily dominate the middle of the park against Honduras.
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Betting on Honduras
The handful of experts who picked Honduras to be one of the surprise packages of this year’s World Cup may just be second-guessing themselves after the team’s less than impressive tournament preparations. The Hondurans fell 2-0 to a shorthanded Turkey before suffering a 4-2 defeat to lowly Israel.
However, they somewhat made up for those two poor performances with a more determined effort against England. Honduras went down to ten men, but their rugged play held the English to a goalless draw. That same physicality will be required against a much more talented French squad.
Honduras has hardly anything to offer going forward, so its best chance of taking anything from this game will be to ruffle some French feathers and take them out of their rhythm offensively. The team’s best players, Maynor Figueroa, Emilio Izaguirre and Wilson Palacios are all defensive-minded players who will be hard-pressed to hold their own against the French.
Writer’s Prediction
With Honduras’ defense looking vulnerable and France’s attack looking irresistible, the signs point to a France victory by more than a one-goal margin. Take Benzema and Griezmann to fire France to win and cover the -1.5-goal spread.
