Qatar vs Honduras prediction: NORTH & CENTRAL AMERICA: Gold Cup betting tips on match 2023-06-29 23:45.
Just one game in, and Qatar are already suffering a slump on their return to the CONCACAF Gold Cup as a guest nation. A 2-1 loss to lower-ranked Haiti on Sunday means that Qatar now cannot match the group-topping seven points they tallied on their Gold Cup debut two years ago. And worse still, they could still emulate the pointless return yielded from their World Cup group just last year!
Finishing consecutive major tournaments on zero group stage points would be a travesty for a nation that has invested so heavily in football over the past decade or so. Yet, the Qataris can start to put things right in front of potentially 70,000+ fans here at Glendale’s State Farm Stadium, but only by repeating their 2021 Gold Cup victory against opponents Honduras.
That 2-0 win itself sits amongst a run of five straight games in this competition won or lost for Qatar (W3, L2), with both defeats sickeningly seeing the final goal arrive beyond the 85th minute. Honduras themselves won’t want to wait that long for any killer blow and will seek an immediate response after being thrashed 4-0 by Mexico in their own opener.
While the 1981 edition of this competition’s predecessor (the CONCACAF Championship) is Honduras’ only triumph, they still have a national reputation to uphold. Notably, just one of the previous nine Gold Cup editions -albeit as recently as 2015 -has seen the Hondurans make a winless exit from the tournament, so there is a clear expectation of an improvement here.
Players to watch: Yusuf Abdurisag gave Qatar the lead against Haiti with his first strike for the team since October 2019, making both of his prior international goals match openers. As for Honduran forward Alberth Elis, his only international goal away from home soil across the past five years came in the USA (Denver, in June 2021) and he is the only member of the squad currently playing in any of Europe’s top-five leagues.
Hot streak: Each of Honduras’ last ten defeats at the Gold Cup finals have also seen them trail at half-time.