Portugal v France Betting Tips [5 July 2024]

Despite their riches in attack, France continue to toil at Euro 2024, even as they prepare to face Portugal in the quarter-finals. Both nations labored to get here; France needing a late own goal and Portugal doing it through penalties. This fixture has history pasted all over it. For the third straight European Championship competition, the two nations get to meet. Portugal beat France in the 2016 final then in their 2020 group game, they drew 2-2. In three of their four Euro meetings in history, these two faced off in the knockouts, and all the three went to extra time. Quite notably, Portugal haven't been entirely convincing in this tournament. Save for their 3-0 win over Turkey, the 2016 champions have struggled. They needed a late goal to complete a 2-1 comeback win over Czechia in their opening game. In their last two matches, they failed to score. Playing after France in the last round, and having gone all the way to penalties may leave them fatigued coming here.

France have shown great solidity in defence but the same can’t be said of their attack. While they have some of the most accomplished forwards around, France have managed just three goals so far at the Euros. None of those goals were in open play by their own players – two were own goals and one a Kylian Mbappe penalty. They did well to overcome Belgium 1-0 in the last round, benefitting from Jan Vertonghen’s own goal after deflecting Kolo Muani’s goal-bound shot. That was the fifth straight game in which France failed to score more than once. However, they’ve conceded just one goal in those five matches. In their last six matches, France have five clean sheets. They only failed to score once in the last eight European Championship matches. Eight of their last 10 European Championship matches produced under 2.5 goals largely due to their low-scoring returns.

Both France and Portugal didn’t have the easiest of matches on their way to the European Championship quarter-finals. This was occasioned by their low-scoring returns. Neither side has been entirely convincing in attack at this tournament so far. With the stakes here, we expect both nations to stay conservative in defence, which promises another low-scoring game. Our prediction for Portugal v France is for the game to produce under 2.5 goals.