Good Morning ☀️,

It’s Lucas here, your Chief Predictions Officer at What Are the Odds?

It’s time to look ahead to the weekend. And boy is it a good one. The Gulf Cup of Nations has its semifinals. We’ve got matches galore across rounds 3 and 4 of the UEFA Nations League. And last but most definitely not least, we’ve got a bunch of international friendly matches coming up. And that means one thing:

Massively unbalanced match ups with some basically guaranteed outcomes.*

And here’s what’s ahead in today’s edition of What Are the Odds?:

• This weekend’s match schedule. 🗓️

• Our top three basically guaranteed picks. ✅

* PS: well, these are international friendlies… so they’re not really guaranteed.

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We’ve got a great bunch of matches coming up this weekend. Here’s the full schedule. (Note: all dates and times are in CEST)

🌍 Gulf Cup of Nations (Semifinals)

Saturday 03 October

• 17:55 — Saudi Arabia vs Qatar

• 20:30 — UAE vs Oman

🇪🇺 UEFA Nations League (Round 4)

Sunday 04 October

• 15:00 — Azerbaijan vs Lithuania

• 18:00 — Kosovo vs Austria

• 18:00 — Malta vs Andorra

• 20:45 — Greece vs Germany

• 20:45 — Netherlands vs Serbia

• 20:45 — Portugal vs Norway

• 20:45 — Republic of Ireland vs Israel

• 20:45 — Wales vs Denmark

🌍 International Friendlies

Friday 02 October

• 13:00 — South Korea vs Venezuela

• 13:35 — China vs Palestine

• 15:00 — DR Congo vs Uganda

Saturday 03 October

• 02:00 — Colombia vs Paraguay

• 16:00 — India vs Brazil

• 17:00 — Russia vs Namibia

• 20:00 — Canada vs Peru

• 21:00 — Ivory Coast vs Cameroon

Sunday 04 October

• 02:00 — Argentina vs Burkina Faso

• 04:00 — USA vs Mexico

• 16:00 — Kyrgyzstan vs Lebanon

• 20:00 — Egypt vs South Africa

• 20:00 — Morocco vs Mali

Want to get the best odds on these matches?

⚽ India vs Brazil
🏟️ International Friendlies
📅 Saturday 03 October; 16:00 (CEST)

• Top 3 Stats:

  • Brazil scored in all of their last 6 matches at an average of 2.33 goals per game.

  • India hasn’t managed a single clean sheet in their last 6 matches while conceding 1.5 goals a game, which includes 3 conceded to Tajikistan (103rd in the world).

  • Brazil has conceded in each of their last 4 matches (5 goals), while India managed to score in each of their last 3.

• CXSports says: There’s not much point beating around the bush here — Brazil will probably win this. So that means the only real thing we have left to talk about here is the margin. So, just how big is it likely to be?
  
  Let’s start with Brazil, who’ve scored 14 goals at a rate of 2.33 per game over their last six matches — matches which include 4 World Cup games (so the competition hasn’t exactly been “easy”). Meanwhile, India has only scored 5 their last 6 at a rate of 0.83 a game (against considerably easier opposition than what Brazil’s faced). And they haven't kept a clean sheet in six games while conceding an average of 1.5 a game. Nor have they won a single game recently — their last victory was against Hong Kong 2-1 back in March.
  
  So already, it looks like Brazil’s more than likely to outshoot India by at least 2 goals — and that’s assuming Brazil takes this one for what it is — an informal international friendly — and doesn’t really put the hammer down.
  
  As for India’s hopes of a goal, well, they’re not zero. Brazil has conceded in each of their last four games (five goals in all), with two of those goals going to Australia (not exactly the world’s elite… even if they outrank India by about 100 places in the FIFA standings) on Tuesday. Meanwhile India managed to score in each of their last three games, including in a 1-1 draw a week ago against Panama. So there is hope here for India, even if it’s far from guaranteed. To add just a little more context here, Brazil’s concessions were to Japan and Norway at the World Cup, and the two to Australia we already mentioned. Meanwhile, India's three goals came against Tajikistan (twice) and Panama.
  
  Still, we won’t be seeing Brazil at full force this Saturday. Right now, they’re playing a rebuilt squad, with only 9 of the 26 players from this year’s World Cup squad. Meanwhile, their stand-in captain, the winger Raphinha, is out with a thigh injury picked up on Tuesday. And he’ll be joining forward Joao Pedro and full-back Wesley who’re also sidelined. What’s more, the squad will likely be feeling a little travel fatigue — they’ve already flown to Brisbane, and now they’re off to Kolkata with just four days between games while India’s had eight full days' rest since their last match. And all of that combined’s quite likely to severely blunt Brazil’s edge.
  
  As such, while India still has basically no hope of not losing this one, we’re giving them a better-than-fifty-percent-chance of scoring a goal (although not much more than that), and a half-decent shot at not allowing the margin to blow out past 2 goals.

• Score prediction: 1-3 for Brazil

Bet Option #1

• Bet: Brazil Victory

• Odds Range: 1.01-1.04

Bet Option #2

• Bet: Both Teams to Score (Yes)

• Odds Range: 2.28-3.00

⚽ Russia vs Namibia
🏟️ International Friendlies
📅 Saturday 03 October; 17:00 (CEST)

• Top 3 Stats:

  • Namibia’s only scored 1 goal in their last 6 matches.

  • Russia has only conceded once in their last 5 while keeping 4 clean sheets.

  • Russia has scored at least two goals in 4 of their last 5 home games, and three goals in three of them.

• CXSports says: Namibia’s only scored one goal in their last six matches. Let that sink in. And if we stretch it back a full year back to October 2025, they’ve only scored two. And it’s not like they’ve got an elite defense making up for that — they've let in fourteen over the same set of matches. And no, this wasn’t a case of playing against an unusually strong set of opponents — that run came against the likes of Comoros, Kazakhstan, Congo, Liberia and Tunisia. And now they get to play a side ranked in the mid-30s in the world.
  
  As for that side — Russia — at home they’ve unbeaten in their last five (4W/1D/0L) and have managed an aggregate score of 11-1, with three of the four clean sheets coming in their last 3 straight matches. And while that number does need one giant caveat — that Russia mostly plays friendlies these days, at home, against opponents they specifically choose to flatter them — that same caveat also applies here. That is, Russia’s playing at home, against an opponent that’s likely to flatter them. In fact, this one may be an even more extreme version of that setup — Russia's recent opponents include Iran, who played at this summer's World Cup and were beaten 2-0 on Tuesday. Meanwhile, Namibia’s most recent opponents include Comoros (who’d gone ten games without a win before beating Namibia last week).
  
  So where does that leave us? Well, we’re pretty confident Russia wins this one come rain hail or shine. The only thing we’re less sure about is the exact margin. While we’re almost certain Namibia won’t score here, we don’t know how heavily an impending rotation will impact the Russians (their coach has signaled changes, their captain’s out, and several others are injured). As such, we think this one could end up anywhere between 2 and 5 goals. So let’s just split the difference and round down to be conservative.

• Score prediction: 3-0 for Russia

Bet Option #1

• Bet: Russia Victory

• Odds Range: 1.05-1.13

Bet Option #2

• Bet: Both Teams to Score (No)

• Odds Range: 1.35-1.48

⚽ Argentina vs Burkina Faso
🏟️ International Friendlies
📅 Sunday 04 October; 16:00 (CEST)

• Top 3 Stats:

  • Argentina’s last 5 friendlies resulted in 16 goals scored and just 1 conceded, with 4 clean sheets in a row.

  • Burkina Faso played qualifiers on 25 and 28 September and then flew from Casablanca to Buenos Aires. Argentina hasn’t travelled since the World Cup and have only played a single game at home in the last week.

  • Burkina Faso has only scored 5 goals in their last 5 matches (1.0 per game) and only won once while conceding 7 (1.4 per game).

• CXSports says: Argentina’s #2 in the FIFA rankings while Burkina Faso’s all the way back in #62. That alone is probably enough to make the rough outcome here obvious — Argentina wins. And, if we pull in some of their stats, we can also make a reasonably certain guess that they’ll do so without conceding — in their last 5 friendlies, they've only conceded a single goal (while scoring 16). And as if the “Argentina wins” outcome wasn’t obvious enough, Argentina’s last 20 consecutive friendlies all resulted in wins.
  
  With that said, their last five games were Mauritania (#111 in the FIFA rankings), Zambia (#91), Honduras (#66), Iceland (#74) and Bolivia (#78). So the 16-1 aggregate from that run might not be entirely representative of the damage they can inflict against Burkina Faso, who ranks better than even the strongest opposition Argentina’s faced in its recent friendlies.
  
  Still, Burkina Faso's numbers aren’t even close to making a case for an upset, so this will probably still be a heavily one-sided game. After all, they’ve only won 1 of their last 5 matches while posting an aggregate of 5-7. And, back in June when they faced the closest thing they've had to a test away from Africa in recent memory, they lost 3-0 to Russia and needed a late equaliser to draw 2-2 with Belarus. Meanwhile, it’s looking doubtful that their first-choice goalkeeper (Hervé Koffi) will be playing this match, while replacement (Kilian Nikièma) was the one serving as goalie for the Russia defeat. Now add to that, their winger Dango Ouattara (12 international goals), who may also not be fit enough to play, while their captain isn't even in the squad. And if that wasn’t enough, they’ll also be arriving in Argentina after two qualifiers in four days followed by a ten-hour flight from Casablanca, whereas Argentina’s played a single home game in the last week and hasn’t travelled since the World Cup.
  
  In reality, the only thing that stops this one getting out of hand is the high odds of Argentina rotating heavily for this one. Not that that’s going to make a difference to the outcome — their reserves would start for most national teams on earth, while Burkina Faso’s quality gap combined with tired legs means they won’t be able to hope for much here.

• Score prediction: 3-0 for Argentina

Bet Option #1

• Bet: Argentina Victory

• Odds Range: 1.07-1.21

Bet Option #2

• Bet: Over/Under (Over 2.5)

• Odds Range: 1.45-1.57

Make your sportsbook work for you!

That’s a wrap for today. We’ll be back next week with the remainder of Round 4 in the Nations League, more international friendlies and, later in the week, the restart of the English Premier League (among other things).

Until then, enjoy the football.