The Netherlands national team was considered the unconditional favorite of its group, where it happened to compete with Qatar, Ecuador and Senegal. In the first round, Louis van Gaal’s team met with Senegal, where they won a 2:0 victory, which is quite confident in terms of score, but difficult in content. Both “orange” balls were scored at the end of the meeting, in which the Africans looked decent. In the second round, the Netherlands failed to win. Ecuador survived. Despite the fact that, thanks to the efforts of Cody Gakpo, they managed to score already in the debut, the Ecuadorians managed to answer with a goal and were in no way inferior to the Netherlands. In the last group match, the Oranges had no problems with Qatar. Scoring a goal in each of the halves, the Netherlands brought the matter to a confident 2:0 victory, which guaranteed victory in the group.
The US team ended up in the same group with England, Iran and Wales, where it was considered the main contender for the second ticket to the playoffs, the first was unconditionally taken by the British. In the first round, Gregg Berhalter’s team met with Wales and gave a great first half, after which they had a one-goal lead. However, in the second half, the Yankees were passive. The result was a 1:1 draw, which was very ambiguous. In the match against England, the Americans again looked brilliant in the first half. They had a lot of chances at the gates of a more status and experienced opponent, but could not convert them. In the second half, the USA played more pragmatically and painted a goalless draw with the group favorite. The loss of points in the match with Iran in the last round threatened to miss the playoffs, but they managed to beat the Iranians thanks to the only ball of Christian Pulisic. At the cost of injury, the Chelsea midfielder scored this ball and his participation in the playoffs is in doubt. More 90% accurate football predictions can be obtained from the link provided.
