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Argentina heavily favored vs. Switzerland Tuesday
By: Brian Graham - StatFox
Published: 7/1/2014  at  5:00:00 AM
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2014 WORLD CUP SOCCER

ARGENTINA


vs. SWITZERLAND


Kickoff: Tuesday, 12:00 p.m. EDT
Arena Corinthians – Sao Paulo, Brazil

Line:
Argentina -222, Switzerland +583, Tie after Regulation +330
Over/Under: 2.5 Goals (Over -129, Under Even)

Argentina looks to secure their spot in the World Cup quarterfinals when they take on heavy underdog Switzerland in Tuesday's Round of 16 match.

Argentina has won all three of its matches in this tournament, with all three victories coming by a one-goal margin. After edging Bosnia-Herzegovina 2-1 and escaping past Iran 1-0, the Maracana outlasted Nigeria 3-2 to clinch Group F. The Swiss began the tournament with a narrow 2-1 victory over Ecuador in extra time, but was steamrolled 5-2 by France in its follow-up game. Switzerland then secured its spot in the knockout round with a convincing 3-0 victory over Honduras. There are some key injuries in this match, as Argentina will be missing forward Sergio Aguero because of a thigh injury, and Switzerland continues to be without striker Mario Gavranovic who tore his ACL in training.

Lionel Messi has carried Argentina this tournament with four goals, while the team's other two tallies came on a fortunate own goal by Bosnia-Herzegovina and Marcos Rojo's game-winner versus Nigeria. Messi has smashed his total of one goal in his first two World Cup tournament appearances, and remains a nightmare to try to contain. Although Argentina has not dominated in this tournament as many experts expected they would versus a perceived weak group, but they did possess the ball for 55% against Bosnia-Herzegovina, a whopping 70% versus Iran and 57% versus Nigeria. The Maracana fired 18 shots in their last match, with 13 of those (72%) shots on goal. For the tournament, Argentina has 48 shots, but only 27 on goal (56%). After generating only two corner-kick chances in their World Cup opener, they have produced 22 corner kicks over the past two contests. The Maracana have played a very clean tournament as well, with just one offsides calls and only 24 total fouls. Their lone yellow card was issued to Rojo in the opening match, and this lack of booking is important for a team that has legitimate aspirations of winning this entire tournament.

Switzerland's defense improved remarkably after allowing five goals to Les Blues, holding Honduras to just six shots on goal in the 3-0 shutout last game. However, Honduras did a nice job pressing the issue with 61% possession and an 8-1 advantage in corner kicks. The Swiss really needed Xherdan Shaqiri to provide some offense, which is exactly what happened in the last game when he netted all three goals in the victory. With two late tallies against France in the previous match -- Blerim Dzemaili in the 81st minute, and Granit Xhaka in the 87th minute, this club has banged in five goals in the past 129 minutes of play. The Swiss attack has also become more crisp, as they put 13 of their 16 shots (81%) on goal versus Honduras, compared to just 8-of-17 shots (47%) on net against France. Although Switzerland committed 18 fouls versus Honduras, none of those fouls resulted in yellow cards. Defender Johan Djourou is the only Swiss player to be booked for the entire tournament, when he was given a yellow card late in the opening match with Ecuador.


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