A potential high scoring thriller is on the cards when Australia host Saudi Arabia for the World Cup qualifier on Thursday.

Australia suffered their first defeat of this qualification campaign in Japan on a 2-1 margin in the previous round and slipped to second in the Group B standings. It was an unbeaten run of 14 matches with 12 wins that came to end on 12th October 2021.

Saudi Arabia lead the group with 12 points after winning the four games so far and bagging a big 1-0 win over Japan on matchday 3. They did struggle at the start of qualifying campaign having held to draws by Palestine and Yemen back in 2019. The team hit top gear since then winning 9 games on the trot scoring 3 or more in 7.
Despite losing at Japan, Australia will be confident of bagging a win here since they haven’t lost a World Cup qualifying match at home turf since 2008. In Group B of the corresponding competition, they defeated Oman and China by solid 3-0 and 3-1 margins respectively.

Meantime, Saudi Arabia have a poor record in this country and their home win against Japan counts for nothing on Thursday. Besides they rarely bagged away wins against top teams and it is worth to note that they lost to the likes of Japan, UAE and Australia in previous edition of the qualifiers.

However, the most attractive bet for this match is without a doubt the over 2.5 goals at full-time. We have seen the same happening with both teams getting on scoring sheet in all previous 5 duels between these two sides



译文(自动翻译仅供参考):

本周四，澳大利亚将在世界杯预选赛中主场迎战沙特阿拉伯，届时可能会上演一场惊险的高得分比赛。

澳大利亚在上届日本世界杯预选赛中以2比1的比分领先，这是他们在本届世界杯预选赛中的首场失利，并跌至B组第二名。这是一个14场比赛12胜的不败纪录，并于2021年10月12日结束。

迄今为止，沙特阿拉伯赢得了四场比赛，以12分领跑小组，并在第三比赛日1-0大胜日本队。他们在预选赛一开始就遇到了困难，早在2019年，他们就被巴勒斯坦和也门打成了平局。自那以后，球队达到了巅峰状态，连续赢了9场比赛，在7场比赛中得分3分以上。
尽管输给了日本队，但澳大利亚队仍有信心在这里赢得一场比赛，因为自2008年以来，他们从未在世界杯预选赛主场输球。在B组，他们分别以3-0和3-1的优势击败了阿曼和中国。

与此同时，沙特阿拉伯在这个国家有着糟糕的记录，他们在周四主场对日本的胜利毫无意义。此外，他们很少对顶级球队取得胜利，值得注意的是，他们在之前的预选赛中输给了日本、阿联酋和澳大利亚。

然而，这场比赛最有吸引力的赌注无疑是全场进球超过2.5个。我们在两队之前的5场比赛中都看到了同样的情况