Germany v Greece Tip

Germany are the hottest favourites to win their quarter-final match with best odds of just 4/11 (WilliamHill) to triumph in 90 minutes. Surprisingly though, we find some better value simply by tweaking the bet to take them to win with a clean sheet. The revised odds of 11/10 with Totesport seem far more appealing.

Given that Greece are 10/1 (Bet365) to pull off a massive upset here I find it perplexing that we get better than evens money on Germany shutting them out. I would have thought that the best, and only realistic hope for the 2004 champions was to keep it 0-0 for as long as possible and hope to knick a goal.

This defensive mindset is even more likely to win us our bet. Assuming the Germans get their noses in front at some point, history would suggest they will simply shut the door behind them.

In the first round games Greece had the fewest shots on target (9) of any of the 16 teams who travelled to Poland/Ukraine. They also had the joint-second worse record for shots off target (10). Given that Group A was almost certainly the weakest of the four sections, that doesn’t bode well for a match against Joachim Lowe’s challengers - the only team to win every match they’ve played in Euro 2012.