Wales – Cyprus

Wales will look to keep the Euro 2016 dream alive when they take on Cyprus in front of over 30.000 fans at Cardiff Stadium.

The hosts will not get a much better chance than this to reach an elusive World Cup or Euro tournament, despite the group being very tough with Bosnia, Belgium or Israel. With 2 teams qualifying directly and one via playoffs, Wales must be confident they can do something in these qualies, especially after gaining 4 points in the first two matches. They defeated Andorra 2-1 on the road (not very impressive) and held on to a 0-0 draw at home against Bosnia, a match that they could have arguably won. Gareth Bale has sustained a real propaganda in the last few days, praising his teammates after the Bosnia draw, praising the fans and urging everybody to rally for a crucial win against Cyprus.

The visitors are on the back of a 2-1 home loss to Israel, a heartbreaking loss for them after they previously won 2-1 in Bosnia and started to hope for a miraculous qualification. It remains to be seen how Cyprus will handle that loss, especially giving the fact that their morale and confidence were already low – the Bosnia win was Cyprus` only success in the last 15 games, and they lost 11 times in that timespan! Going further back in time, Cyprus has lost no less than 18 of the last 24 games, which has to be some kind of record even for the likes of Andorra or Liechtenstein.

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Team news & lineups

Unfortunately for Wales they still miss Aaron Ramsey, who would have surely made a difference together with Bale and Allen continues to be out as well. Otherwise the two sides are relatively healthy according to reports.

Wales: Hennessey – Gunter, Chester, Williams, Taylor – King, Ledley, Edwards, Davies – Bale, Church

Cyprus: Giorgallides – Dossa, Merkis, Antoniades, Nikolaou – Charalambidis, Makridis, Laban, Christofi – Stylianou, Makris

Listen, Wales are far from being world beaters and even with Bale in the team they struggle even against lesser opponents. However, this is a solid side, a very well coached team, surrounded with great excitement by fans. I reckon Wales will get a big win today. Cyprus is just rubbish for a long time now, the infusion of foreign players in their league really hurt their National Team and it`s safe to say they are one of the worst teams in Europe over the last few years (18 losses in 24 games speaks volumes). I don`t have any doubts that the Israel loss has shattered the confidence of these players and the way they have been losing in the last few years, a handicap win for Wales is a real probability. Wales has better quality but today`s football is very balanced and details always make the difference – that is why it`s key for me that Wales has amazing morale and atmosphere surrounding the team, they will be heavily supported by fans, while Cyprus is not really brimming with confidence right now. There is no surprise from my part that the odds are so low on Wales.

My tip is Wales to win and cover the 1 goal asian handicap, I have little doubts that Wales will win, I just hope they will do it by more than 1 goal so we win the bet instead of getting our money back. Expect Wales to get the go-ahead goal at some point and then finish odd the game on counterattacks, where they are absolutely deadly with Gareth Bale. Prediction: Wales – Cyprus 2-0.

Pick: Wales (-1 Asian Handicap)
Odds: 1.75 @ Pinnacle
Stake: 10
Possible profit: 7.5
Event date: 13 October