We're back on track with our World Cup projections after Costa Rica cashed us a +900 moneyline winner.
That moves the projections-based best bets to +8.97 units for the World Cup as a whole with a 35.2% ROI.
Monday marks the end of the second round of group play, with the marquee matchup of Portugal and Uruguay rounding out the day.
My projections simulate each game 250,000 times and are powered by my colleague BJ Cunningham‘s offensive and defensive power ratings for each team. Using his power ratings, I use something called diagonal-inflated bivariate poisson to simulate the scoring distribution for each game.
So, what do my projections say for Monday's World Cup games? Let's take a look.
Monday World Cup Projections
All bets are 1 unit unless stated otherwise
Group G: Cameroon vs. Serbia (5 a.m. ET)
- Serbia are a 59.9% favorite to win according to my simulations.
- Recency bias may work against Serbia as they got manhandled by Brazil.
- However, Brazil are the best defensive team in the world.
- Prior to that, Serbia averaged 2.23 xG per game throughout this World Cup cycle.
- Serbia should dominate this game, and they have a chance to score multiple goals.
- Best Bets: Serbia ML (-125 via DraftKings), Serbia Over 2.5 (+340 via FanDuel)
- Bet to: -130 and +310 respectively
Group H: South Korea vs. Ghana (8 a.m. ET)
- South Korea are 48.2% to win according to my simulations.
- This game has the lowest scoring expectation of all first round games with only 1.7 total goals expected.
- South Korea have allowed less than 1 xG in 13-of-16 games this cycle.
- In five games against teams ranked 75th or better, South Korea have allowed only 0.86 xG per game, allowing only one goal across those games.
- Best Bets: South Korea Draw No Bet (-135 via PointsBet), Under 1.5 (+175 via BetRivers)
- Bet to: -175 and +150 respectively
Group G: Brazil vs. Switzerland (11 a.m. ET)
- Brazil are a 57.8% favorite to win according to my simulations.
- Brazil have the best defense in the world.
- Meanwhile, Switzerland have been very strong defensively of late.
- Switzerland have held six of their last seven opponents in competitive matches scoreless.
- In those games, they've allowed only 0.82 xG.
- Brazil have scored only six goals in their last seven competitive games against top-32 teams in our power ratings, averaging 1.59 xG in those games.
- There's sneaky value on a lower scoring draw, so I'll put 0.33 units on 0-0 and 0.67 units on 1-1.
- Best Bets: Correct Score 0-0 (+1400 via DraftKings), Correct Score 1-1 (+750 via FanDuel)
- Bet to: +1000 and +750 respectively
Group H: Portugal vs. Uruguay (2 p.m. ET)
- Portugal are a 51.8% favorite to win according to my simulations.
- Neither team is in a must-win situation as both are comfortably favored to win their last game and already have points.
- Both teams also came in near expectation in their opening games.
- That's left little betting value on either team, or on the total.
- I'll pass on betting this game.
