Qatar vs Australia Prediction and Betting Odds

Australia will head to Qatar to play the first of their two friendlies in the Middle East.

The game was scheduled as part of their Asian Cup preparations before the tournament was postponed, but this one and the match against Jordan will still go ahead.

The two nations will meet in Qatar on Saturday, November 14, with kick-off at 01:45am AEDT.

Quick Picks

Our pick: Draw

Value bet: Australia & Draw

Long shot: 1-1 Correct Score

Betting Preview

Tony Popovic won’t have a full-strength team available for these two friendlies, with many players having declared themselves unavailable.

Reasons cited have included regional security issues, particularly around the game involving Jordan.

To this point, the Qatar fixture doesn’t appear to have been impacted, although Popovic has had to call up eight new players from his last squad (against Brazil), with seven yet to have featured for the National Team.

Sam Klein, Thomas Waddingham, and Diesel Herrington have earned their first-ever call-up, with the latter joining his brother Lucas Herrington as one of two brother duos (the other being Tete Yengi and Kusini Yengi).

Amid the changes, Popovic will still have 11 of the squad that featured in this year’s World Cup, including keeper Patrick Beach.

The Troyes stopper has seemingly replaced Matt Ryan, who has once again been left out by the manager, pointing towards his international career appearing to be over. Harry Souttar seems to be the coach’s choice as captain.

Julen Lopetegui’s side head into this match on the back of a semi-final defeat to Saudi Arabia in the Gulf Cup. His side lost in a penalty shootout after a 0-0 draw, with a different player scoring each of the four goals in their first three Group games.

Betting Markets to Watch

Australia have been made early pre-match favourites, but we think there’s more value in the draw. For a safer alternative, the Australia And Draw market may be a better value route. 

Punters wary of backing the stalemate outright might also weigh the draw no bet option as another way to manage that risk.

Qatar will have home advantage and are back-to-back winners of the Asian Cup; their only two trophy victories.

Australia leads the head to heads between these two sides, with three wins, one draw and one defeat from the five previous meetings. However, the last time these nations played was in 2014, when Qatar won 1-0 at home.

The changes Popovic has had to make to his squad could make it difficult for them to be as strong as they would like. Value can likely be found in the BTTS.

Australia have recently shown they can score against strong opposition, including both recent friendlies against Brazil and the World Cup Round of 32 defeat against Egypt, but their squad changes introduce defensive uncertainty.

Qatar have also scored in all three of their three most recent Gulf Cup matches. However, BTTS landed in only one of their last four matches, and Qatar scored more than once in just one of them.

Four of Qatar’s last six home matches have finished with under 2.5 goals, suggesting this bet may have value.

With our main pick and value bet both built around the draw, it is worth being clear on what the win draw win market means before you settle on a selection here.

Our Prediction

Check the latest Qatar vs Australia betting odds at Sportsbet.

Our prediction is for a draw, with the Australia And Draw offering alternative value.

Our long shot is 1-1 as the correct score. Australia could score without necessarily controlling the game, while their experimental squad made a clean sheet harder to trust.