In a repeat of the Euro 2024 final, it’s England against Spain, but this time at Wembley. It’s a match of the Nations League, a competition Spain have won in the past.
Here’s what we make of the two teams, Spain’s unbelievable unbeaten run, some good trivia and our best bet ahead of the game on Saturday night.
Betting on England - Spain Match
England’s World Cup run this summer is complicated to assess. On the one hand, a third-place finish that included a barely believable 6-4 (this is football, not tennis!) win over France to secure that bronze medal must mostly be seen as a success.
On the other hand, they were in control against Argentina in the semis after going 1-0 up, only to go into defensive mode and lose the game 2-1 right at the end.
After back-to-back defeats in the last two Euros finals and now the World Cup semi-final, their fans must be wondering whether they’ll ever actually win a major tournament, rather than just come close time and time again.
But this may not be the tournament to buck the trend. The best they have to show for four editions is a semi-final appearance in the first edition back in 2019, a disappointing return for a team that includes the likes of Harry Kane, Jude Bellingham and Declan Rice.
Spain? Well, what can we say? Euro winners two years ago, World Cup winners this summer, one-time winners (plus two lost finals) of the Nations League and the number 1-ranked side in the world; they are and have been the best international team for the last two or three years at least, with their patient, highly technical brand of football too good for all-comers.
It’s somewhat surprising that England lead 13-11 in the head-to-head record between the two, with four draws over the years as well.
And curiously, the last time they played each other in the Nations League, some seven years ago, it was 3-2 to England in Spain and 2-1 to Spain in England!
But two years ago Spain won the one that mattered, beating the Three Lions 2-1 in the Euro 2024 final.
Spain’s outstanding record (see below) over the last few years suggests the simplest bet is to take them on the Double Chance market at 1.4 where either a win for them or a draw would be a winning wager; but we can do better than that on the anytime goalscorer market.
Harry Kane is usually the first port of call in these circumstances; at 2.2, it isn’t a bad price for him to score, but he’s not the one we’re looking at this time.
Spain’s Ferran Torres scored the winner in the World Cup final, and since moving from Barcelona to PSG hasn’t stopped scoring, with two against Rennes, a hat-trick against Bratislava in the Champions League, and crucial winners against both Brest and Marseille in the last couple of weeks, to make it seven goals from six games.
Torres doesn’t always start for Spain, but in this form, he has to play and looks a good price at 3.75 for a goal here.
- Bet: Ferran Torres to score anytime
- Odds: 3.75 (at the time of writing)
Did You Know?
Spain have won all of their last seven games, but far more impressive than that is the fact that they’re unbeaten in their last 38, a world record when they overtook Italy’s 37. They last lost to Colombia in March 2024.
Kane is England’s record goalscorer by some margin; he’s now on 85 goals, 28 clear of next-best Wayne Rooney.
Those 85 goals came at a rate of 0.71 goals per game, but two players in the Top 10 of England's top scorers had better returns than him in terms of goals per game: Jimmy Greaves (0.77 goals per game) and Vivian Woodward (1.26 goals per game), though Woodward was playing back in the 1910s.
