Morocco vs. Spain 12/6/22 World Cup Soccer Picks, Predictions, Odds

Morocco and Spain face off on Tuesday in the Round of 16 World Cup soccer showdown at the Education City Stadium. 

Morocco finished in first place of Group F picking up seven points. Morocco opened up the World Cup with a 0-0 draw against Croatia. In the last two games though, they have looked a lot better, beating Belgium 2-0, and beating Canada 2-1. Against Canada, they scored two goals in the first 23 minutes. They had 41 percent of the possession and two shots on target. Morocco isn’t expected to make any changes to their starting lineup here. Yassine Bounou was dealing with an illness earlier in the World Cup, but he played against Canada and is expected to start again here. Achraf Hakimi is dealing with an ankle injury, but it’s expected that he’s going to be able to go here. 

On the other side of this matchup is Spain who finished in second place in of Group E picking up four points. In the first game of the World Cup, Spain was quite dominant, beating Costa Rica 7-0. After that game, though, Spain wasn’t all that dominant, and they tied against Germany and lost against Japan. Against Japan, Alvaro Morata scored in the 11th minute, but the defense gave up two goals in the second half and that led to the defeat. Dani Olmo, David Raya and Cesar Azpilicueta all missed training on Friday and there are doubts about who is going to be able to play here. 

Morocco’s defense has been strong heading into this game, but this is a whole different test going against the offense of Spain. I do expect they are going to be up to the challenge, though, and both teams are going to struggle to score here. Look for only one or two goals to be scored here, and this game is going to stay under the total. Back the under to cash.