New Zealand v Netherlands
I’d expected to be against Holland in this with given how short they are in the betting, but a super strong set of final results in warm-up sets them up very nicely indeed, and perhaps the prices can be justified. They thrashed Australia 3-0, Chile 7-0 and Mexico 2-0. It’s true they don’t have a great heritage to fall back on in the Womens game, having only once been the World Cup before, and only reaching their first European Championships in 2019, but the pace of development was underlined with their 2017 victory in the Euros and the country is set up to succeed now they are going. We shouldn’t forget their win at the 2018 Algarve Cup as well (shared after rain cancelled the final). The squad is packed with players participating in the top divisions now – from Sari van Veenendall (Arsenal), Stefanie van der Gragt (Barcelona), Dominique Bloodworth (Wolsfburg) all the way through to Danielle van de Donk, Jill Roord and Vivianne Miedema (all Arsenal) and Lieke Martens (Barcelona).
New Zealand are not quite as strong, and are yet to progress beyond the group stage in a World Cup. While they produced a number of eye catching scorelines in 2018, matches against the worlds top ten haven’t generally been good. They beat England 1-0 in earlier this month, but lost 5-0 to USA, 2-0 to Australia and 3-1 to Japan last summer.
If Holland are to win, and possibly quite easily, then the best bet to could Vivianne Miedema to get on the scoresheet at anytime. The Arsenal striker is playing for one of Europe’s top teams now, and has scored 57 goals in 74 internationals. She enjoyed her most prolific season to date this year with 29 goals in 25 games for Arsenal and looks overpriced at 10/11 to score at anytime.
2.2pts Vivianne Miedema to score at anytime at 10/11 (General)