Argentina vs Bolivia Betting Tips

If you take a look at the recent history of this fixture there are quite a few encouraging results for Bolivia who thumped 6 goals past Diego Maradona’s Argentina in qualifying for the 2010 World Cup. However away from the severe altitude of the Bolivian capital La Paz, this game is rarely much of a contest with Argentina’s significant extra class usually showing.

That is likely to be the case again here with Argentina naming a very similar squad to the one that reached the final of Copa America in the summer. Lionel Messi will captain the side in his 104th cap but Gerardo Martino could experiment a little, particularly with a tougher game against Mexico coming up in a few days.

Bolivia made it through to the Quarter Finals of Copa America, thanks mostly to a 3-2 win against Ecuador in the group stage. They were beaten by Peru in the last eight but it still represents a solid showing given they are regularly dubbed as the weakest side on the continent.

Argentina may have beaten Bolivia 5-0 in their last meeting, which was a home friendly earlier in the year and they thumped Paraguay 6-1 at Copa America but such performances are an all too rare occurrence. Often they struggle to get things going even when the attacking talent they possess suggests they should cruise to victory.

In their other 4 games at Copa America, they managed just 2 goals. Meanwhile their most recent friendly double-header in the United States resulted in 2-0 and 2-1 wins against the not so mighty El Salvador and Ecuador.

They have little to prove here and this game in the heat of Houston is unlikely to be played at the same sort of intensity we saw in the Copa America which took place in the Chilean winter in July. So an Argentina win but a low scoring one is likely and you can back them to win the game with 3 or fewer goals in it at tempting odds of 11/10.

Backing a routine 2-0 scoreline at 5/1 is more sensible than going for a cricket score and certainly the 2nd half is likely to be a very disjointed game with lots of substitutions.