Portugal vs Hungary Predictions, Betting Tips and Match Previews

The last time Portugal and Hungary met was just last summer when they faced off in the Euro 2016 group stages. The underdog Hungarians took the lead three times against Portugal and threatened to knock them out of the competition, but three times Portugal responded to claim a point, sending them through to the knockout stages.

From then on they went on to fail to win the next two matches in normal time, requiring extra time against Croatia and penalties against Poland. This made it five draws on the bounce for them in the competition, but a semi-final win against Wales and an extra time defeat of host nation France saw them lift an unlikely championship.

Their first match as European champions was a 5-0 hammering of Gibraltar in a friendly, but they were brought back down to earth when they lost 2-0 in Switzerland. Portugal have managed to bounce back with comprehensive victories over Andorra, Faroe Islands, and Latvia, but they are currently 2nd in their World Cup qualifying group and three points adrift of Switzerland.

The trajectory of Hungary since that draw in June has been rather less fortunate. They went out in the first knockout round as the scintillating Belgians beat them 4-0, and that was followed by a draw in the Faroe Islands and a loss to Switzerland in their opening two World Cup qualifiers.

Victories against Latvia and Andorra have seen them bounce back, but they lost last time out to Sweden in a friendly and the limitations of their rather old squad are definitely clear to see.

Portugal’s last three World Cup qualifiers have seen them score a huge 16 goals and concede just once, with captain Cristiano Ronaldo scoring seven goals in this period and being well backed up by the very promising Andre Silva.

Considering their performances in these games and Hungary’s obvious defensive vulnerabilities, I think another comfortable win is on the cards for Portugal. Odds of 1.890 for a Portugal -1.5 Asian Handicap win look good value for money, so I’m going for that along with a 4-1 correct score predictions at 20/1.