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International Football Betting: You'd be nuts not to lay Brazil against Portugal

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Ben Lyttleton on why a near full-strength Portugal side can add to their superb recent record against Brazil plus the best bets from Netherlands v Sweden, Serbia v Bulgaria and Austria v Turkey.

You could pick an impressive side using players that have dropped out of this week's round of international friendly matches - it might include the likes of Lucio, Frank Lampard, Zlatan Ibrahimovic and Arjen Robben - and that fact alone makes choosing selections for Wednesday's games an interesting proposition.

Travelling halfway across the world in the middle of a gruelling season, with Champions League matches to come next week, might not be the players' ideal choice but one nation which has had very few drop-outs this week is Portugal. Ricardo Carvalho is the only first-team absentee from the squad to travel to Brazil though Carlos Queiroz's omission of Nuno Gomes, which leaves Hugo Almeida as the only centre-forward in the squad, was a surprise (and suggests that Queiroz will continue to pick Cristiano Ronaldo at centre-forward).

Portugal have stuttered in their World Cup qualifiers under Queiroz, losing to Denmark and drawing 0-0 against Albania and by the same scoreline away to Sweden.

And they are struggling to get support from their own fans, who booed Ronaldo in the Albania game. They have an excellent recent record against Brazil though, winning two and drawing one of their last three encounters.

Queiroz is not under pressure yet, but the same cannot be said for his Brazil counterpart Dunga. Brazil's last three competitive home matches finished 0-0, to Colombia, Bolivia and Argentina, and despite the need for goals, the coach has once again overlooked in-form Juventus striker Amauri and Ronaldinho. Instead, he has called up Adriano, despite him failing to make Inter Milan's squad for the last four games due to disciplinary problems with coach Jose Mourinho.

Dunga has also been criticised for keeping faith with Gilberto Silva, whom columnist Tostão describes as "slow and marks the opposing players from distance". Portugal may not get an away win, but laying Brazil looks like a decent option.

There will be a striker swansong in Belgrade for what is being described as "The Milosevic Match" as Savo Milosevic makes his first and last appearance in a Serbia shirt in their friendly against Bulgaria. New coach Raddy Antic has succumbed to sentimentality and rewarded Milosevic with a call-up after he helped Rubin Kazan win the Russian title.

Milosevic has scored 35 goals for Yugoslavia and Serbia & Montenegro but claimed that, "playing for Serbia will be the proudest moment of my career". Antic has made few changes to the squad that struggled under predecessor Javier Clemente but he has clearly
not wasted his six years out of the game: there is a new attitude and determination among his players, and that has seen them move top of their World Cup qualifying group after comfortable wins over Lithuania (3-0) and Austria (3-1).

Bulgaria boss Plamen Markov recently criticised Dimitar Berbatov after it emerged he only ran 2,000 metres during the goalless draw
with Italy - but he's unlikely to get extra effort in this friendly, which bodes well for the home fans.

Austria have come down to earth since their World Cup qualifying win over France back in September, and new coach Karel Bruckner has come under pressure following the 2-2 draw against the Faroe Islands. Striker Marc Janko, who has scored 25 goals in 18 matches for Red Bull Salzburg this season, has joined Emanuel Pogatetz, Umit Korkmaz and Alex Manninger on the absentee list, while Turkey are without their main attacking threat Semih Senturk and Arda Turan. So don't expect too many goals at the Ernst Happel.

Sweden coach Lars Lagerback is without the injured Johan Elmander and Tobias Linderoth and has allowed Serie A-based players Zlatan Ibrahimovic and Olof Mellberg to withdraw: that's four key players missing the trip to Holland.

And while the Dutchmen are also without Robben, Nigel de Jong, Klaas-Jan Huntelaar and Ruud van Nistelrooy, coach Bert van Marwijk has not called up any new faces (to the chagrin of some supporters), preferring to trust the greater strength of his squad. Mark van Bommel, benched at Bayern, has played well with his father-in-law as national coach, and with Dirk Kuyt in excellent form, it could be a long night for the visitors.

Recommendations:

Lay Brazil at [1.87] against Portugal
Back Serbia at [1.96] to beat Bulgaria
Goals under 2.5 at [1.79] in Austria-Turkey
Back Holland/Holland in the half-time/full-time at [2.6]