Portugal vs Serbia

It all comes down to this encounter in Group A, as Portugal and Serbia face off at the Estádio da Luz to determine who secures automatic qualification to Qatar 2022.

Despite being held to an uneventful ‘nil-nil’ draw to Ireland last time out, Portugal are in firm control of their qualification hopes as they need to avoid defeat here to secure an automatic berth at Qatar 2022. On the bright side, Fernando Santos’ men have been nothing short of outstanding since exiting Euro 2020, winning all but one of their six internationals since (D1) while keeping a clean sheet in the last four on the trot. That’s a stark contrast to their defensive fortunes against Serbia, having failed to register a single shutout across their seven historical H2Hs. However, Portugal will feel confident here, as they’ve not lost any of those seven encounters (W3, D4). What’s more, they have won all five previous home matches by an aggregate score of 15-1.

In the meantime, despite going unbeaten throughout the entire 2022 World Cup qualifying campaign (W5, D2), Serbia may not reap what they’ve sowed as they need to win here to reach back-to-back World Cup finals for the first time as an independent nation. The scars of Serbia’s recent play-off experience are still fresh, as they lost to Scotland in the Euro 2020 qualification. However, Dragan Stojkovic’s men head into proceedings amid a purple patch, having lost just one of their last 15 internationals (W8, D6), including a 2-2 draw in the reverse fixture that saw them come from a 2-0 HT deficit to eke out a draw. Yet, this could be a pitfall, at least based on the fact the Serbs have failed to win any of their last 22 meetings with FIFA’s current top 30.