Qatar vs. Ecuador odds and pick: How to bet the World Cup opener

The biggest sporting event on the planet, the 2022 World Cup, gets underway on Sunday with a match between the hosts, Qatar, and Ecuador. The betting market for this contest has been open for months, and despite playing a road game, it’s Ecuador that currently sits as a +125 favorite on the three-way moneyline. Qatar are +250 at the time of writing.

As is always the case when handicapping international soccer tournaments, there’s a lot to unpack and make sense of in this matchup.

Over 2.5 goals (+166, FanDuel)

We’ll start with Qatar, who are the hosts of the tournament and thus automatically qualified. That means that this team — and soccer federation — has been building toward this day for over a decade.

And they’ve been preparing for this match against Ecuador for seven months. While the rest of the players around the world have had their club seasons interrupted by this competition, Qatar’s players have been at training camp for the last six months to gear up for the Cup.

Whether or not that helps or hurts the Maroons remains to be seen, but it’s just another odd wrinkle in a match that was already strange to begin with.

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Another thing to remember here is that host nations generally tend to perform well in the group stage and, uh, get the benefit of the doubt. Whether you want to call it home-field advantage or just FIFA being FIFA, there’s certainly plenty of evidence to suggest that Qatar are likely to be the benefactors of 50-50 calls and the like. Heck, the tournament was moved up a day at the request of Qatar just a few months ago. That’s right, the organizers had no issue moving the entire competition — the biggest sporting spectacle in the world — up a day this past August.

As for Ecuador, they are the more talented side and are the deserving favorites in this match in a vacuum. Moisés Caicedo, a star central midfielder for Brighton in the Premier League, will be the best player on the pitch and should be able to control the tempo against a pedestrian Qatar midfield. Caicedo’s Brighton teammate, Pervis Estupiñán, will provide a bona fide attacking option on the flank and is a danger on set pieces, while supporting players like Enner Valencia, Gonzalo Plata and Ángel Mena give La Tri a decent attacking outfit, especially when compared to Qatar.

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In terms of the gamescript, it does seem likely that this match is pretty open. Both Qatar and Ecuador will have this game circled as their best chance to win in the group stage — they’re in Group A with Senegal and the Netherlands — so you should expect both teams to be pretty aggressive and hunt for the victory. And if there’s an early goal, or any goal in general, things should open up further.

That type of game-state should make for a back-and-forth affair as neither side profile as particularly adept in transition.

Getting more than +150 on the Over 2.5 seems like a solid bet to make in a match that has some sneaky chaos potential given the make-up of both teams.

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