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Joey - May 26, 2018
Mexico vs Wales
International Friendlies
Date: Tuesday, 29 May 2018
Kick-Off at 02:00 UK / 03:00 CET
Venue: Rose Bowl, Pasadena, California.
Rose Bowl in Padsadena, California will play host to the international friendly between Mexico and Wales on Monday evening. The clash will provide opportunities for both sides to bounce back from their respective losses back form March.
The difference between the two is the fact Mexico will feature the World Cup in Russia this summer unlike Wales whose fairly underwhelming WC Qualification saw them finish behind Serbia and Republic of Ireland in the Group D.
El Tri had no troubles earning their tickets to Russia as they easily topped the final round of CONCACAF WC Qualifications. The nominal hosts are seen as pretty big favourites here. The main reason lies in Bale’s absence for the Dragons as the Real Madrid superstar was part of the Champions League final against Liverpool on Saturday.
The two sides locked horns exactly six years ago in a friendly played in East Rutherford back then.
El Tri came on top 0-2 at the end thanks to a brace from Jesus Aldo De Nigris.
It was only the second head to head clash between these two sides as the first one took place back at the 1958 World Cup in Sweden when teams shared spoils in a 1-1 draw in the group stage.
Both managers will have troubles with the squads here. Giggs will be without Ben Woodburn, Joe Allen and Gareth Bale, while he made an interesting decision leaving WBA’s Hal Robson-Kanu out of the squad for the Mexico friendly. Arsenal’s Aaron Ramsey will, however, be back in the line-up after skipping the China Cup challenges in March.
The Dragons actually played very well at the China Cup where they trashed the host nation 6-0 in the semis before falling narrowly 0-1 to Uruguay in the final. Wales generally play very tight and we can expect Ryan Giggs to prepare the strategy in such fashion, particularly knowing he’ll be without the star man here.
Mexico ended the three-win streak with a rather disappointing loss to the mixed line-up of Croatia in March (0-1 on the home soil). Juan Carlos Osorio will obviously want to see improvements here and the Colombian manager will be encouraged with the return of Jonathan dos Santos who featured a match for LA Galaxy in the MLS after coming back from an injury. Overall, both teams will be highly-motivated to get the result here and we can expect a close encounter with very few goal-scoring chances at both ends. Under 2-5 goals FT is by far the best of the betting options and you can back it at the odds of 1.61.
Coming-up: Team News & Expected Starting Line-ups.
