One team will advance to the 2018 World Cup final, while the other will see their championship dreams come to an end. Bettors from around the world have been laying down wagers on England vs. Croatia on Wednesday at 2 p.m. ET from Luzhniki Stadium in Moscow. England enters Wednesday's semifinal at +135 on the money line, meaning you'd need to bet $100 on an English victory to win $135. Croatia enters this must-win 2018 World Cup match at +230, while a draw in regulation is +220. The over-under on total goals scored is 2. With three teams left, England has 3-1 World Cup odds to win the entire tournament, while Croatia is 5-1. France, which defeated Belgium on Tuesday, is 4-7.
Before you enter your 2018 World Cup picks for Croatia vs. England, you need to see what European football expert David Sumpter has to say. Sumpter is an applied mathematician and author of "Soccermatics," a book that explains how math works inside the sport. Together with other experienced analysts, Sumpter developed the powerful Soccerbot model.
The Soccerbot reads current odds and all team performance data, calculates key metrics and predicts upcoming matches. In nearly three seasons since its inception, the Soccerbot is up an incredible 1,800 percent on bookmakers' closing odds.
The model is crushing the 2018 World Cup knockout stage. It correctly predicted draws in regulation for Spain-Russia (+280), Croatia-Denmark (+225) and England-Colombia (+215) and was all over France beating Uruguay in regulation to reach the semifinals, not to mention Brazil and Belgium cruising in the Round of 16. Earlier, the model nailed draws for Argentina-Iceland (+385) and Brazil-Switzerland (+360) and predicted Iran upsetting Morocco at +275, just to name a few of its big calls. Anyone who has followed it is way, way up.
Now, the Soccerbot has digested the film, crunched the numbers and broken down every single player on the Croatian and English rosters. The model has released a very strong money-line pick, which it's sharing over at SportsLine.
The model knows this will be the second meeting between England and Croatia at a major tournament. England was victorious, 4-2, in a group stage match at Euro 2004. And the Three Lions enter Wednesday's semifinal having lost just two of their last 30 competitive matches (W22, D6) since dropping their first two games at the 2014 World Cup.
England is led by its captain, Harry Kane, who has scored six goals already at the 2018 World Cup and is the front-runner for the Golden Boot. And England's 11 goals in Russia equals its highest total at a World Cup.
The model also knows that Croatia reached the 2018 World Cup semifinals thanks to consecutive shootout victories in the knockout stage. The only other team to win two shootouts in a single World Cup was Argentina in 1990.
And the Croats will fancy their chances of getting past England at Russia 2018. Croatia's only defeat in six World Cup knockout games was against eventual champion France in the 1998 semifinal. In fact, that remains Croatia's only defeat in eight World Cup matches against a European side.
So which hungry squad wins on Wednesday? Visit SportsLine now to see the strong Croatia-England pick, all from a European football expert whose powerful model is up 1,800 percent in less than three years.
