Peru vs Chile Odds
| Peru Odds | +285 |
| Chile Odds | +115 |
| Draw | +210 |
| Over/Under | 2.5 (+155o / -200u) |
| Day | Time | Friday | 8 p.m. ET |
| How To Watch | FS1 |
| Odds as of Thursday night via DraftKings | |
In the lone game on Friday, Peru and Chile will start their Copa América campaigns in Dallas for a Group A matchup.
The Peruvian squad comes into this tournament with only two points out of a possible 18 in CONMEBOL World Cup Qualifying. Meanwhile, Chile has also struggled in the recent qualifying matches and had to make a change at manager this year.
The recent form of both nations is not good, but I do think there’s a big talent discrepancy that is not being shown in the betting odds. Let's take a look at how we can take advantage of that in our Peru vs. Chile preview. And for more, check out BJ Cunningham's best bets for Euro 2024 and Copa America on Friday.
Peru
Chile wasn’t the only team in this contest that made a recent change at head coach. Veteran manager Jorge Fossati was brought in to lead the nation in December.
Fossati is no stranger to CONMEBOL, as he was the coach for Uruguay from 2004-06. He guided La Celeste to a third-place finish in the 2004 Copa America.
This will likely be a tougher test considering he doesn’t have much talent to work with. However, Peru’s recent results in the friendlies leading up to this tournament have been solid.
These games will be the true bar of success as to whether there has been improvement under his leadership or not.
Chile
It is starting to look like the golden generation of Chilean soccer is getting to the end of the road. This was a group of players that won this tournament in 2015 and 2016, while they also made the Round of 16 in the World Cup in 2010 and 2014.
There are still a couple of familiar faces from those runs. Real Betis’ Claudio Bravo is still in goal, and Alexis Sánchez is in attack.
One of the biggest changes is at coach, as Ricardo Gareca was hired to lead the nation in January. Ironically, his most recent success story came as the manager of Peru. Gareca led the Peruvians to the World Cup for the first time in 36 years, and his first competitive game for Chile is against his old country.
Peru vs Chile
Prediction
Regardless of what we have seen in recent friendlies, I’m not buying the recent uptick in scoring by Peru. It all just comes down to the best way of fading the weak attack.
With that said, my best bet is to take Chile to Win to Nil at +200 odds at bet365, which I would play down to +170. You could also just keep it simple for Chile to win at close to even money.
BJ did a great job of breaking down this terrible Peruvian offense in his preview article, but I’ll summarize his thoughts.
In the country’s six World Cup Qualifying matches, Peru created a whopping 2.5 expected goals, according to fbref.com. It makes it worse that close to half of that came in one game against Venezuela.
This is the same team that failed to score in five of six qualifiers, which includes the game against Chile. In that fixture, Peru generated just 0.16 xG on just four shots, and this same bet would have cashed.
Yes, the team has scored seven goals in four friendlies under Fossati against Nicaragua, Dominican Republic and El Salvador. But all of those nations are outside the top 80 of FIFA’s rankings.
When Peru stepped up in class to play Paraguay (No. 56) recently, the poor Peruvian offense showed up again to produce 0.3 expected goals and five shots.
Chile still having the quality up top and in the nets should be enough here to cash a great ticket.
Pick: Chile Win to Nil (+200)
