Thursday Football Tips: Roll with Raphinha for Brazil

Ecuador v Brazil
Thursday 27 January, 21:00 kick-off
Live on Premier Sports 1

It's already job done for Brazil with a World Cup spot nailed down. With still five matches left to play, they've marched through qualifying in style.

Ecuador could well join them as they're third in South American qualifying on the back of their tremendous home form playing up at altitude in Quito.

And with Brazil failing to score in their last two away games and having already qualified, the door is open for Ecuador.

For more on the South America qualifiers read Nathan Joyes' preview.

For us here, though, it's about working out just how Brazil will approach this game and what player props value we can squeeze out of it.

The problem is Brazil are huge favourites so in the goals and assists markets prices are short, but Tite's side have taken a pragmatic approach to away games recently so could you even guarantee they'll score?

Brazil are unbeaten so far though and the aim now is to remain that way right through qualification, and with no Neymar, Roberto Firmino or Richarlison this is a chance for another man to shine.

That man is Leeds United's Raphinha, who has made a remarkable impact since being called up to the squad, most notably when coming off the bench with two assists to help beat Venezuela.

He's started the last three of his five games for Brazil and more performances like these could well get him a starting spot for the World Cup.

He's scored twice, had 10 shots with six on target with an average of just under two shots on target per 90 minutes.

And in this game his pace on the break and trickery on the ball could prove crucial - he's a man on a World Cup mission and playing almost to his average of two shots on target here at 4/1 seems reasonable.