Argentina and Ecuador close the Copa America quarterfinal round with their meeting at Estadio Olimpico Pedro Ludovico in Goiania. This is one of the last chances for Lionel Messi to win some gold with his national team, and may we add that Barcelona’s striker looks superb at the moment. On the other end, the Ecuadorian team advanced to the next stage without a win, having three draws. Gustavo Alfaro‘s team isn’t in good shape right now, but at least they don’t feel pressure coming into this event.
Preview
Argentina (-205) didn’t lose 17 straight matches right now, with the latest failure dating in July 2019 against Brazil. Gauchos seemed pretty solid in the group stage, posting three wins in a row following a draw at the opener against Chile, 1-1.
Messi and the boys beat Paraguay and Uruguay afterward with 1-0, smashing Bolivia 4-1 in the latest match. Barca’s legend scored three goals had two assists, winning three Man of the Match awards. Currently, he is the best player in the tournament so far.
Scaloni’s team isn’t ultra-defensive as many would believe, and in the last nine matches, six ended with both teams scoring. That wasn’t the case in the past. Though, four of the past six games did go under 2.5 scores.
Ecuador (+750) is one very interesting team to watch. They haven’t won in five consecutive games, but still managed to advance to the next stage of this tournament. After losing three in a row, the latest being an opener at Copa America, vs. Colombia, 0-1, they posted three draws.
All of them were with goals on both sides involved – against Venezuela and Peru, 2-2, and in the final round of the group stage with Brazil, 1-1. Many suggest that the Brazilians deliberately gave one point to Ecuador, believing that they could create more trouble for the top team in Group A (probably Argentina).
They played six games in the last three weeks, and four of them ended with both teams scoring. Ayrton Preciado is the leading scorer of this unit with two goals. Santos Laguna’s forward is also the best player on the team, showing the most of all the players involved.
Latest News
Argentina doesn’t have any problems coming into Saturday’s clash.
A big problem for the head coach Gustavo Alfaro is Enner Valencia‘s and Moises Caicedo‘s condition. These two picked up injuries against Brazil, and while Valencia should play, Caicedo’s state is still unknown.
Head to Head
Argentina won the previous three games against this rival, scoring 10 and allowing two goals. However, the most recent match saw them beating the Ecuadorians just 1-0.
Prediction
With Messi in this shape, there should be no problem for Argentina to defeat Ecuador. Overall, Alfaro’s boys are on the decline, with six straight matches without a victory, while on the other hand, we have surging Argentinians who came to Brazil to win the title. The odds might not be very high, -205, so we suggest you to bet on Argentina’s win with a -1.5 goal handicap. The odds for this pick are at +125.
Here are the previews of the remaining Copa America 2021 games.
Also here are the previews for the EURO 2020 quarterfinals as well
Nikola Velickovic is a sports journalist who loves to write and read on all sports. Nikola contributes both news updates and functions as a sports breaking news writer at WagerBop.
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