| 4.5 Goals (o +110 \/ u -134)<\/td><\/tr><\/tbody><\/table><\/figure>\n\n\n\n Odds above courtesy of FanDuel as of June 13.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Germany’s Current Form<\/h3>\n\n\n\nTwelve years ago, Germany became the first European nation to win a World Cup on South American soil when they beat France, Brazil and Argentina en route to the title in Rio de Janeiro. Things have not gone well for the Germans since then.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Germany has failed to make it out of the group stage in each of the last two World Cups. Germany played host to the Euro 2024 tournament, but was bounced in the quarterfinals.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Julian Nagelsmann needs to build immediate confidence within his squad to avoid a “Here we go again” situation, and last week’s friendly win over the United States was a fine place to start. The Germans have scored a total of 12 goals across their last four matches, including a 2-1 win over the US in Chicago in the final warm-up.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Curacao’s Current Form<\/h3>\n\n\n\nCura\u00e7ao will make history in a couple areas when this game kicks off on Sunday. With a population that hovers around 150,000 people, Cura\u00e7ao will be the smallest nation to ever participate in a World Cup. In the process, 78-year-old Dick Advocaat will become the oldest manager to lead a team at this event.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Tip your cap to Cura\u00e7ao for the qualification effort, but with all due respect, this is not a squad that would have made the World Cup under the former 32-team format.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Typically with smaller nations like Cura\u00e7ao, they have a club-like feel because so much of their roster is concentrated together and the players know each other very well. Teams like Qatar and South Africa have most of their rosters playing within their respective domestic leagues. That’s not the case with Cura\u00e7ao, whose footprint is spread across the globe. A quick look at Cura\u00e7ao’s roster shows 12 different leagues represented, ranging everywhere from the USL (second league in the US under MLS), to the Malaysian Super League to the Israeli Premier League and everywhere in between.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Germany vs Curacao Prediction<\/h3>\n\n\n\nWhereas other heavyweights in this event are looking down the road and preparing a path for the knockout round, the Germans are focused on the here-and-now to avoid another embarrassing early exit. In that friendly against the US last weekend, Germany opened the scoring in the second minute of the match with a goal by Kai Havertz.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Nagelsmann will certainly be asking for that same aggression from the opening whistle to avoid any negative thoughts from creeping into the minds of his squad. In the opening match of Euro 2024, Germany began the tournament with a 5-1 win over Scotland which featured three goals in the first half. We’re expecting a similar result in this one. At the time of posting, Germany’s first half team total over 1.5 goals<\/strong> is available at -131 at DraftKings and -134 at FenDuel.<\/p>\n\n\n |