Panama vs Northern Ireland Predictions, Betting Tips and Match Previews

The tiny Central American city more famed for it’s canal than it’s football, will gear up for the World Cup finals this summer for the first time in their history. Their preliminary squad selection includes a host of vastly experienced international players, and it’s likely that all of these veterans will be included in the final selection early in June.

This squad includes six players with over 100 international caps to their name, five of whom started on that fateful night back in October as they stunned Costa Rica with a 2-1 win to send them through to their first ever World Cup.

Since that historic night, things haven’t gone particularly well for the hosts. They have lost three of their six games since, including losing all three of their games against fellow World Cup hopefuls. With warm up matches against Northern Ireland and Norway before they face Belgium in their opening match, they will be hoping to regain some confidence.

Northern Ireland aren’t exactly known for their youthful players either, and that trend hasn’t really been bucked for this match. Old veterans Aaron Hughes, Gareth McAuley, and Jonny Evans have all bee included, although behind them they have a trio of goalkeepers with just one cap between them. The likes of Paddy McNair, Gavin Whyte, and Paul Smyth do bring some promising youth into the side though.

Unfortunately for Northern Ireland, they weren’t able to repeat the feat that saw them qualify for Euro 2016 two years ago. They crashed out in the playoff round to Switzerland back in November, and since then have only been in action once.

The visitors certainly aren’t a bad team, and they showed that with their performances in France a couple of years ago. However, they have lost three of their last seven trips away, and Panama built much of their qualifying success around their form on home soil. They have won their last two home games, and you have to imagine that they will be taking this game much more seriously than Northern Ireland.

With that in mind, backing a Panama win looks a good choice, given how desperate they will be to get some results under their belt, so we’re going for that along with a 1-0 correct score predictions.

Panama Predicted Lineup: Penedo, Machado, Torres, Escobar, Ovalle, Barcenas, Gomez, Godoy, Quintero, Perez, Tejada 

Nothern Ireland Predicted Lineup: Carson, Hughes, McAuley, Evans, Hodson, Norwood, Saville, Evans, Dallas, Ferguson, Magennis