Colombia and Ivory Coast will play their second match in Group C of the FIFA 2014 World Cup.
Both teams have already won their first matches and carry an advantage over the other two teams in the group. Inevitably this match is highly important for either team as the winner will guarantee to move to the last 16.
Colombia is enjoying her 3-0 win against Greece. The performances of Teofilo Gutierrez, Pablo Armero and James Rodriguez have made their head coach Jose Pekerman more than happy. Another pleasing point for Colombia was their satisfactory defense they showed in the game against Greece.
However Ivory Coast is a much stronger team than Greece and they need to show a much higher mid-field performance in this game. If Colombia scores first they should never try to keep this score but continue to attack as Ivory Coast has several high quality players to punish this defensive approach.
As for the Ivory Coast had just managed to deliver a victory against Japan by letting their key player , Didier Drogba , join the match later on the second half which caused a lot of dispute. As far as I am concerned no matter how old Drogba is he should always be in the field all the time. Hence I expect their head coach Sabri Lamuchi to start with Drogba against Colombia. Drogba as he always causes severe problems to any defense, will keep Colombian defense tactically busy , hence causing their collective play to decline by not allowing them to participate fully in any attack.
The match will highly depend on the performances of Solomon Kalou who has been lacking the high spirit people have been waiting from him for years now and the one and only mid-field player Yaya Toure. The scorers of the first match Wilfried Bony and Gervinho are the other two dangerous players of the Ivory Coast to watch. ,
This is a game which is very hard for both sides which makes it very difficult to guess the favourite. According to me Colombia has a little more leverage to beat the Ivory Coast though by a very small margin. Best of luck to all the betters and football lovers.
Prediction: BACK COLOMBIA
Highest odds of the top bookies for backing Colombia:
Betfair @ 2.14
bet365 @ 2.10
BetVictor @ 2.10
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