England might have defied the odds after going down to 10 at the Estadio Azteca in the early hours of Monday morning, but punters from outside of the UK are expecting their World Cup run to end at the quarter final stage.
The Three Lions take on Norway on Saturday night at the much more palatable time of 10:00pm BST after reaching the quarter finals for a third successive World Cup.
But the Norwegians have had arguably a more impressive run than England so far.
They have defied the odds to reach this stage, and talisman Erling Haaland has bagged seven goals already – a sight England fans will be more than accustomed to after his exploits in the Premier League over the last few years.
This is not to say that Norway’s run has come as a major surprise – many were tipping the Scandinavian outfit as ‘dark horses’ pre-tournament.
But that ‘dark horse’ tag has now been shedded by the looks of things. Data from Betano shows 75% of users are backing Norway to spring a surprise once again, as they did against Brazil in the round of 16.
Betano has taken data from 18 markets, excluding the UK, showing that three in four punters expect Ståle Solbakken’s side to upset the applecart and add to England’s 60 years of hurt.
Betano stats for the rest of the quarters
With Betano, Norway is the most heavily backed team to qualify from the quarter-finals, despite England entering the tie as favourites – very slightly odds-on – with most bookmakers.
The operator’s data also shows that 80% of users expect Argentina to progress against Switzerland, while 67% were backing France to overcome Morocco – which they did in a comfortable 2-0 win last night.
Spain’s clash with Belgium is the closest of the four quarter finals, with 55% of users favouring the favourites and European Champions Spain to advance.
Tipico survey: England’s opponents are biggest World Cup surprise
The betting trends come as new research from the Tipico Sports Data Center suggests Norway has become the tournament’s biggest surprise package.
A representative survey conducted by ONE8Y found that 44% of German football fans now regard Norway as the biggest surprise of the World Cup following its 2-1 victory over Brazil in the last 16.
While Tipico’s statistical model gives England a 70% probability of reaching the semi finals, fan opinion with the German operator is far more evenly divided, with 48.4% of respondents believing Norway can spring another upset.
This contradicts Betano’s pool of punters, but once again shows that fans view this quarter final clash as a much more even affair than the bookmakers.
Norway’s title prospects have also improved significantly.
According to the survey, 13.2% of fans now believe Erling Haaland’s side can go on to win the World Cup, although Tipico’s data model assigns them a more modest 6.7% chance.
It has been tipped as a record-breaking World Cup for operators, though for the UK clan, they did not seem to fare too well on Monday morning in terms of profit-making.
Reports suggest that Sky Bet shelled out nearly £12m on Mexico vs England, bookmaker Geoff Banks described the event as “our most expensive loss in any football match”, and Betway’s PR Manager, Lewis Knowles, admitted to SBC News that it “was obviously not a bookmaker friendly result”.
Haaland’s comments yesterday seemed to affirm that Norway had embraced the role of the underdog in this tie, as he said that England “should be confident of progressing”.
However, many may see this as mind games from one of the world’s best.
Whatever happens, England will certainly start the match in Miami on Saturday as favourites.
The players will likely relish the rest of the world’s optimism and belief that Norway can cause an upset, but it may strike a note of fear into some fans.
For those England supporters that may resonate with that comment regarding fear, just remember – England are odds-on with the bookies, and as they say, “the house always wins”.
