Match 17 - Switzerland v Portugal / Dan Fitch / 14 June 2008 / Leave a comment

What tournament would be complete without the obligatory match that is now completely pointless? Luckily this match will be played at the same time as the other, absolutely vital game in the group, so we won't be forced to actually have to sit through this one on the telly.

Portugal's 3-1 win over the Czech Republic wasn't nearly as emphatic as the scoreline suggests and demonstrated certain defensive frailties. Still they won they group and as a reward will almost certainly play Germany in the quarters. Which just goes to prove that despite what your parents may have said, hard work isn't always rewarded.

The big news from last week though was that Big Phil Scolari has become the manager of everyone's favourite perennial runners up, Chelsea. The tabloids have all been claiming to have the inside scoop on his transfer targets, but really all they've done is to name players that are either Portuguese or Brazilian. Clever.

At the 2002 World Cup, Scolari gave all of his Brazilian squad a copy of Sun Tzu's 6th century Chinese military treatise 'The Art of War'. I hope he realises that if he plans to do the same thing at Chelsea, then John Terry's copy had better be the pop-up version.

Switzerland were involved in what has been my favourite match so far this tournament, when they lost 2-1 to Turkey, in what was quite literally a stormy encounter. There was so much rain coming down that I thought that the players were going to have to build an ark.

The Swiss have little room to complain about the weather conditions, considering that they were entirely to their advantage. The conditions were unplayable, but as Switzerland can't really play, this didn't effect them too much. Indeed, if Hakin Yakin hadn't produced the miss of the tournament, they would have gone 2-0 up and would still be in with a chance of progressing.

I had a feeling that it would be Switzerland rather than Austria that would fail the more spectacularly. But both have done just as badly off the pitch, with the organisation and facilities for this tournament not being up to scratch. One shudders to think how Poland and Ukraine will cope in 2012.

But Switzerland's capitulation need not be a disaster for us overs backers. Since Euro 96 there have been seven matches featuring teams that have lost both of first two games. On five occasions their final match has resulted in over 2.5 goals, an impressive 71% overs yield.

Portugal's omens are even better. There have been seven occasions since 96 when a team has won their first two games. Their final match was over 2.5 goals on six of these seven occasions. That's 86% for those without calculators.

There have been six matches since Euro 96 in which two sides have met in the last game, having both been involved in a game of over 2.5 goals in their second match. In total, four of these final matches have resulted in overs. Overall, 72% of teams that break 2.5 goals in match two, do so again in match three.

The head to head encounters between the two sides are less encouraging. Only three out of the seven matches between Portugal and Switzerland have featured more than 2.5 goals. Having said that, the last time the nations played was back in 1993, so this statistic probably has little relevance. In fact, it's probably better if you just forget that you read it.

It will be interesting to see what sort of teams both sides field. With nothing to play for it could be surmised that the managers will give a run out to some squad players that have yet to taste a bite of the action. In Portugal's case you would expect these players such as Quaresma and Nani, to try to put in a big performance and force their way into contention for the quarter final match.

Unders is the slight favourite at [1.88], with over 2.5 goals at [2.1]. I'd expect Portugal's exuberance to over power the dour Swiss and overs is the way to go.

Tags: Euro 2008 betting, Euro 2008 odds, Quaresma