Tunisia v England

Sportsbooks offer Gareth Southgate’s men as the front-runners to win this clash, and with Belgium in their qualifying group, they can’t risk any upsets in this opening fixture.

Tunisia and England have only ever played each other on 2 occasions.

The first was a friendly in 1990, which ended in a draw, and their last match was a World Cup match back in 1998 when England walked away with a 2-0 victory.

Sportsbooks don’t have high hopes for Tunisia, and England should easily beat Nabil Maaloul’s squad, putting them in a strong position before they face the tougher teams in this group.

Tunisia are returning to the World Cup after a 12 year absence, and while they had a pretty easy qualifying run, and made it to the Quarter-Finals in the African Cup of Nations, they'll now face much tougher opposition.

Maaloul’s men haven’t lost any of their last 6 matches, and come into their opening fixture on the back of 2 impressive wins against Iran and Costa Rica.

This will no doubt give them the confidence boost they need to take on their impressive Group G opponents, and although the sportsbooks aren’t expecting any major success for Tunisia in the competition, they’ll put up a strong fight to progress to the next stages.

While it’s fully anticipated that England will win, we can’t rule Tunisia out until we see how they perform in their opening fixture, as they could easily through a spanner in the works for England’s World Cup campaign if they can manage to hold them to a draw.

After poor showings in the previous World Cup and also Euro 2016, England went on to hold an unbeaten run in qualifying, and sportsbooks have high hopes for them this time around.

Gareth Southgate’s squad looks good, and come into the competition after an impressive win against The Netherlands in their March friendly, and a solid draw with Italy in their last outing.

There is an abundance of talent in the England squad, and they have the potential to do well, but it will be their performance against the bigger teams that Southgate needs to focus on.

England are one of the top 8 seeds in the competition, and are expected to progress easily through the Group stages, however they need to be careful not to underestimate Tunisia in their opening fixture, as a win will be crucial before they face group favourites Belgium.