Editor's Note: Action Network mourns the loss of Grant Wahl and we send our love to his family and friends.
Arguably the biggest game of the World Cup takes place on Saturday as England and France square off for the right to move on to the semifinals.
In the earlier game, Morocco look to pull off an upset of Portugal to become the first African nation to advance to a World Cup semifinal match..
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.
Let’s dive into Friday’s World Cup quarterfinal games.
Saturday World Cup Match Projections
All bets are 1 unit unless stated otherwise
Morocco vs. Portugal (10 a.m. ET)
- Portugal are 54.0% favorites to win in regulation and 62.7% to win prior to a possible penalty shootout.
- There’s a 16.3% chance this game goes to penalties.
- Overall, Portugal are favored to advance at 70.9%.
- My projections on the moneyline and spread are right in line with the market.
- I am showing value on a low-scoring game.
- Morocco have played in three games with two or fewer total goals
- They seem unlikely to score multiple goals.
- The question is, will Morocco hold Portugal to under two goals.
- Given they shut out Belgium, Croatia and Spain, I'll bet on it.
- Best Bet: Under 2.5 (-145 via PointsBet)
- Bet to: -165
England vs. France (2 p.m. ET)
- England are 35.3% to win in regulation and 41.9% to win prior to a possible penalty shootout.
- There’s a 16.3% chance this game goes to penalties.
- Overall, England are favored to advance at 51.0%.
- England have looked very good in all of their games, playing a surprisingly strong USA side to a draw and winning the rest of their games comfortably.
- The Three Lions are underdogs in the market, but I have them as a slight favorite to advance.
- There's some thin value on the under as well, but I'll take the bigger edge.
- Best Bets: England ML (+200 via DraftKings)
- Bet to: +200
