Belgium’s talented squad head to this summer’s World Cup as favourites yet again and this game offers Roberto Martinez the chance to test his selected players against reigning European champions, Portugal. Portugal defended their way to victory in Euro 2016, and they have selected almost the same group of defenders, however, it seems very unlikely for them to record the same kind of success at the World and seeing them throw away a 2-goal lead to draw 2-2 against Tunisia in their last game would bother their fans. The Portuguese major concern should be their ageing defence, however, with Christiano Ronaldo yet to join them, their lack of quality on the attack has also become evident. They would be banking on Bernado Silva lead them to victory here. Belgium would be happy to see how old the Portuguese defenders are especially as they are a team buzzing with attacking talents. Belgium bagged 43 goals in 10 qualifying games and they have netted in 19 of their last 20 friendly games ahead of this game. The Belgians have also been boosted by the return to fitness of Romelu Lukaku who netted 11 times in the qualifiers, and he has netted in his last six Belgium games. Portugal beat Belgium at home 2-1 the last time these teams met in 2016.  

Although they failed to qualify for the FIFA World Cup in Russia, Austria come into this game in top form having avoided defeats in their last 6 games and have kept a clean sheet in their last 3 matches leading up to this encounter. They would, however, need to do better than they did in their last match against Russia which they won, if they want to get a result against the defending world champions here. Germany are surprisingly in a bad form leading up to this game as they have failed to win any of their last five matches. However, this game would be their first warm up before the World Cup and their fans would be hoping for a better performance from them here. The result is not useful for the Germans anyway so we expect their manager to do some experimentations here. Germany’s poor form in their previous matches has been down to their bluntness in attack as they managed just 1 shot on target against Brazil. They have named a strong offensive team and this game should show what they would do at the World Cup. Germany have an excellent result in this fixture as they have won all of the last nine games involving these teams.

This game brings together two of Brazil’s biggest teams head to head and the home side would be looking to take advantage of their home crowd to get the maximum points after 90 minutes. Gremio have one of the strongest squads in the division and this is evidenced by them lifting the Copa Libertadores last season, however, they have still failed to win the Brazilian Serie A since 1996 and this season may be their last hope before teams start buying off their star men. After their 1-0 win at the weekend, Gremio are currently 5th on the league table with 12 points from their first seven games. They have also secured advancements in the Brazilian Cup and the Copa Libertadores, keeping their hopes of a treble alive. They are unbeaten in 14 home games and they would be fighting to preserve that here. Fluminense have made a surprisingly good start to the season after underachieving for the last few years. They currently have 13 points from their opening seven games which has helped them to sit second on the Serie A standings. They beat Chapecoense 3-1 in their last league game and would be eager to get another three points here, however, their small squad would come under some serious tests beginning from this game as they face playing two games per week right until the World Cup. These sides met 4 times last season across league and cup and Gremio were dominant, running out victorious on each occasion. In the 4 meetings, Gremio scored 8 times with Fluminense managing just a single goal.

New England Revolution started the season with a defeat at the hands of Philadephia Union, but they recovered from that to win three of their opening five games and never tasted defeat until a month after their first loss. But it seems they have now hit a bad patch and their current form should worry their fans. They played out a thriller in their 3-3 draw against Vancouver Whitecaps at the weekend, but they have managed just two wins from their last seven MLS games and three of those games have ended in losses. They are now sixth on the Eastern conference table and they would be eager to avoid their near-miss situation from last season. Atlanta United are one of the newest teams in the MLS, yet their 7-0 win over New England Revolution in their very first MLS match is still fresh on the minds of both fans, coupled with their current good run of form, that could see them win here again with superior mental strength. Atlanta are even a better side from last season and they come into this game as the leader of the Eastern Conference despite losing their last game New York Red Bulls. They are level on points with Columbus Crew who are second, but they have two games in hand and they couldn’t have wished for a better start to the season. They have won eight of their 12 league games this season and scored an impressive 26 goals in the process, and whilst two of their three defeats have come in the last few weeks, both came on home soil. Away from home Atlanta United have won four games on the trot now, with their sole defeat coming back on the opening weekend of the season against Houston Dynamo.  

After missing out on World Cup qualification, Romania have picked up some form in the friendlies ahead of this game. They recovered well from a loss to the Netherlands by beating Israel 2-0 away from home before following that up with a 1-0 win over World Cup participants, Sweden. This game offers them the chance to collect three wins on the trot. Chile also failed to qualify for the World Cup in a more surprising turn of events. They followed up their disappointment with a win over Sweden also before being held by Denmark in their next match. Although they are a star-studded side, they seem to be hot and cold, it would be interesting to see which Chile turns up for this game. Romania have developed their offensive side of play since missing out on the world and netting twice in Isreal was impressive, scoring against a Sweden side that is notorious for digging deep to get a result even does more to show that Romania can hurt any team at the moment. These sides seem to find the net more often as they have both found the back of the net in four of their last five friendly games, both notching up eight goals in the process respectively.