Saudi Arabia and Egypt enter the final group stage match still looking for their first victory at the 2018 World Cup. Both squads lost their first two games against group rivals Russia and Uruguay. Now, they square off on Monday at 10 a.m. ET at Volgograd Arena. Egypt enters this Russia 2018 match as a -120 favorite on the money line versus Saudi Arabia, meaning you'd need to wager $120 on an Egyptian victory to win $100. Saudi Arabia is +350 (risk $100 to win $350), while a draw is +250. The Over-Under on total goals scored in this 2018 World Cup match is 2.5.
Before you make your 2018 World Cup picks, you need to see what European football expert David Sumpter has to say.
Sumpter is an applied mathematician who wrote "Soccermatics," the book that shows how math works inside the game. Together with experienced analysts, Sumpter developed the powerful Soccerbot model.
The Soccerbot reads all team performance data, calculates key metrics and predicts upcoming matches. In the two-and-a-half seasons since it was born, the Soccerbot is up an impressive 1,800 percent on bookmakers' closing odds.
The Soccerbot already called Argentina-Iceland ending in a draw (+385), Brazil-Switzerland playing to a draw (+360), Iran (+275) upsetting Morocco, and Senegal (+220) topping Poland, just to name a few. Anyone who has followed it is way up.
Now, Sumpter's model has examined Saudi Arabia-Egypt and generated money line and over-under World Cup picks.
We can tell you he's leaning Over, but his more confident pick is on the money line. He's only sharing it over at SportsLine.
Sumpter knows Egypt will fail to advance past the group stage in its first World Cup appearance since 1990. The Egyptians lost a heartbreaker to Uruguay in their opening match at the 2018 World Cup. Egypt's star player, Mohamed Salah, was on the bench for the opener, but didn't step on the field.
Salah, who scored more than 40 goals for Liverpool last season, played in the country's second match, which Egypt lost 3-1 to host Russia. Egypt is hoping Salah can find his form and lead Egypt to its first ever World Cup victory.
The Saudis won't be an easy out: They showed that in a 1-0 loss to Uruguay on Wednesday. The match marked a huge improvement after the Saudis were embarrassed 5-0 by Russia in the World Cup opener.
"We may not have done enough to get the result we wanted, but we had the ball a lot and we circulated it well," coach Juan Antonio Pizzi told reporters. "We imposed ourselves on the game."
Pizzi made it clear that for an upstart like Saudi Arabia, there is no such thing as a meaningless World Cup game.
"We regret that we have no possibility [of advancing] in the last game, but we'll still represent our country, and we'll make Saudi Arabia proud even though we are out of the tournament," he said.
So which hungry nation wins Monday? Or does it end in a draw? Visit SportsLine now to see the strong Saudi Arabia-Egypt money-line pick, all from a European football expert whose powerful model is up 1,800 percent in less than three years.