South Korea vs Australia Predictions

Since being dumped out of the Asian Cup by the eventual winners (Qatar), South Korea have done well. They steadied themselves to beat Bolivia by a goal to nil, while they also secured a pleasing win over Colombia last time out. After two morale-boosting wins, Paulo Bento’s men will fancy themselves to get the better of an Australia side that has looked weak in recent times.

In general, South Korea have performed well since exiting the World Cup in Russia last summer; they’ve won nine of their 14 games, only one of which they’ve lost in normal time. They’ve not been amazingly prolific in front of goal, as they’ve averaged 1.43 goals, but they have at least tended to keep things tight at the back, shipping an average of 0.5 goals and 0.8 expected goals.

However, while their overall numbers are reasonably pleasing, they struggled to get going when they played Australia seven months ago. They did have to play away from home, though the fact that they managed just two shots on target and clocked only 0.31 expected goals for. Similarly, it was disappointing that they surrendered no less than 22 shots, nine of which hit the target. They also allowed the Australians 2.21 expected goals. Such numbers tell us that the South Koreans were fortunate to avoid defeat.

Since that rather frustrating 1-1 draw with South Korea, Australia have delivered some pleasing performances; they beat Lebanon 3-0, Oman 5-0 and Palestine 3-0, though they come into this game off the back of two disappointing results. It took until penalties for them to see off Uzbekistan, while they were dumped out of the Asian Cup by UAE. Then again, given that they created 1.68 expected goals for, they were slightly hard done by to lose 1-0.

From a betting point of view, if we look at the overall efforts of both in the last 12 months, the bet that stands out is ‘Both Teams to Score’.

South Korea did disappoint offensively when the pair last met, but they can easily do better at home. Add in the fact that they’ve posted an average of both 1.43 goals for and 1.74 expected goals for in the last year, combined with the fact that Australia have averaged 2.11 goals for and 2.01 expected goals for, and we can conclude that the chances of both teams finding the net in Busan on Friday are slightly greater than the current odds suggest.