Club World Cup Day Three Tipsheet: Back 11/4 Dortmund to see-off Brazilians in opener | OneFootball

Club World Cup

Club World Cup best bets for Tuesday including Dortmund and River Plate

It's a busy day on Tuesday at the Club World Cup, and Paul Higham has his best bets for all four games on offer, including Borussia Dortmund's big tournament opener against Brazilian giants Fluminense...

It's day three at the Club World Cup and there's four more games on offer in this expanded FIFA tournament - with Borussia Dortmund and a trio of South American giants entering the competition...

Flamengo v Esperance Tunis

02:00 BST Tuesday

2019 Club World Cup runners-up Flamengo sit top of the league in Brazil and have won six of their current eight-game unbeaten run, and kept six clean sheets during that spell.

Tunisian treble winner Esperance are also in flying form, having gone 11 games without defeat, winning nine of those, while scoring 27 goals and coneding just twice - so both sides know how to defend.

Flamengo are big 3/10 favourites while Esperance are big outsiders at 17/2 for what would be an upset victory, which I just can't see, so the question is how the South Americans will win this.

And going on their recent defensive record, Flamengo will be tough to score against so backing them to win to nill looks the best play of the game.

Fluminense v Borussia Dortmund

17:00 Tuesday

This is a really intriguing game between tournament debutants Dortmund and the last runners-up in the competition in 2023 - with Brazilian giants Fluminense heading in to the game as huge 5/1 shots.

The bookies really fancy 1/2 favourites Dortmund here, who won seven of eight to end the season in the Bundesliga Champions League places, but Fluminense are in decent form too with five wins out of six in all competitions - scoring 13 goals during that run.

Although you wouldn't usually back too many goals in these types of games, it's hard to ignore Dortmund's scoring prowess last season, where they scored 3.3 goals on average in their last six outings - and even in their last day banging in 29.

Nine of BVB's last 10 had 4+ goals in, and Fluminense scoring 2+ goals in six of seven makes 4/5 on both teams to score an attractive proposition while strengthening the claims to back over 3.5 goals at 17/10

That all pretty much leads into backing Dortmund and goals at both ends for this one.

River Plate v Urawa Reds

20:00 kick-off

Argentina versus Japan in Seattle as River Plate make their third Club World Cup appearance thanks to their CONMEBOL ranking, which stems from their 10-year consecutive run of making the last-16 of the Copa Libertadores.

The Beunos Aires outfit have lost just once in 17 games and are 4/7 to see-off Japan's Urawa Reds - who won the Asian Champions League in 2022 to qualify for this fourth Club World Cup appearance, with a best finish of third in 2007.

Urawa have won just two of seven heading into this tournament though, and with four of River's last six wins coming by 3+ goals the likely outcome here seems a convincing victory for the South Americans.

I was torn here on whether Urawa would score or not - as eight of River Plater's last 10 games saw both teams score - but when you combine that with the South Americans' recent ruthless streak when winning, a nice compromise is over 2.5 goals which covers the Japanes side finding the net or suffering a convincing defeat.

Ulsan HD v Mamelodi Sundowns

23:00 kick-off

This one won't be on many people's games to watch list, but it's a big game for both South Koreans Ulsan Hyundai and South African outfit Mamelodi Sundowns as they kick-off their tournament in Orlando.

Both have played in the Club World Cup before and Ulsan arrive in the USA on the back of winning three straight K League 1 titles, but Mamelodi can trump that as they're the dominant force domestically with eight consecutive league titles.

It's a tough betting heat obviously, with Ulsan 21/10 outsiders and the Sundowns 7/5 favourites after winning their league by 12 points last season and losing just three games. They also made the African Champions League final but lost out against Egyptian side Pyramids (no, that's their real name).

With Dortmund and Fluminense also in this group, both of these sides know this is their best chance of a win, so expect them both to go for it as they'll likely get hammered in their next two!

And so I'm happy to go for goals here - both sides have strong scoring records and there'll also be a naivity to their play on this big stage that should see both sides find the net, which is 9/10, and I'll combine that with over 2.5 goals as well as these two minnows of the competition get involved in a surprising shootout.

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