Japan vs Paraguay Predictions, Betting Tips and Match Previews

Japan face their final warm up friendly on Tuesday night, as they take on Paraguay. This is their warm up for a big clash with Colombia at the tournament, which could be a tricky test. They’ve got a chance, having landed in the most open of all eight World Cup groups. However, Japan still appear as outsiders compared to Poland and the Colombians, and possibly Senegal too. The Blue Samurai are in awful form, and that doesn’t help matters. However, are they set to return to winning ways this week?

Japan have to wait until next Tuesday for their World Cup opener, which comes against Colombia. However, there’s not much comparison between the side they’ll meet in Saransk and this Paraguay outfit. Their opponents this week have lost back to back games ahead of this friendly, which is just their second since their qualifying campaign ended. They lost to the USA back in March, and their attempts to rebuild their national side takes them across to Europe this week, as the pair clash in Austria.

Paraguay have lost their previous six friendlies, while they suffered defeat on eight occasions as they pushed for the World Cup. They lost five of their last eight to finish on a sour note, and the national side have been struggling of late. This seems like a chance for the Japanese to turn around their form, which is equally poor.

They risk heading in to the World Cup winless in eight matches, with a string of poor results in 2018. Ghana and Switzerland have both beaten them on the eve of the World Cup, while Japan lost to Ukraine and drew with Mail earlier this year. They’ve failed to keep a clean sheet in their previous nine games, recording just one shut-out in their previous 12, which dates back to the tail end of their qualifiers.

Paraguay conceded 25 goals in their qualifying campaign, while they’ve also managed one clean sheet in their last 12 matches. However, they should be confident of grabbing a goal against the Japanese and their poor set-up. However, Japan have hit the back of the net in 13 of their last 16 friendly matches, so we see them getting a goal. With both defences seemingly in tatters, we think goals are in order in this one. We’re also backing a 1-1 draw, given that neither of these two look to be in winning form.