Guatemala vs Saint Vincent & the Grenadines Predictions & Betting Tips, Match Previews

Guatemala’s hopes of making it to Russia are hanging by the thinnest of threads. They really needed to win their game in Trinidad last Friday and they were briefly leading through Carlos Ruiz but two Joevin Jones strikes and a red card for Cristian Jiménez put paid to their realistic hopes of making it through. Although they remain just about alive after Ruiz netted a late equaliser. Put simply, they need to go goal-crazy here against St Vincent and hope USA are defeated at home by Trinidad & Tobago. A one goal defeat for the States would still leave them needing to win this by 11 goals, so clearly it’s a very long-shot.

St Vincent are a poor side and have lost all of their 5 qualifiers at this stage, conceding 5 goals per game on average. Guatemala won 4-0 in St Vincent earlier in the campaign and they were hammered 6-0 at home by USA last week. Although, that was their joint highest margin of defeat in the group and they’ve only once lost a game by the sort of margin Guatemala require, when they lost 11-0 to Mexico in 1994 World Cup qualifying. They’ve done very well to reach this stage in truth and will take a lot from the experience but even against a side like Guatemala, they are well out of their depth.

Given the ease with which Guatemala won in St Vincent and their need to at least try and chase a big scoreline, a comfortable home win looks the most likely outcome here. They gave group leaders Trinidad & Tobago a real fright on Friday and, if they can repeat that level of performance, they should cruise to victory here. So, backing Guatemala -3.0 Asian Handicap at 1.825 looks to offer real value with the visitors trying to avoid an 8th consecutive international defeat.