Against All Odds: The Stars and Stripes to find it tough in Jacksonville

It's been one of those years for Jozy Altidore

The international friendlies continue today and Paul Robinson thinks the clash between USA and Nigeria will be very low-scoring.

USA v Nigeria
Saturday June 7, 23:00 BST
Live on BT Sport 2 and Betfair Live Video 

The World Cup countdown is well and truly on now as the competing nations play their final warm-up matches before it all kicks off in Sao Paulo on Thursday evening. Two of the countries who will be involved are the United States and Nigeria, and with the odds suggesting that they'll both be eliminated at the group stage, tonight's friendly in Jacksonville won't feature the winner of the tournament.

USA came through qualifying with relative ease as they topped their groups in the third and fourth round of proceedings. Led by Jurgen Klinsmann, the Americans will have mixed feelings about their prospects as while the German has excellent motivating qualities, he's not got a great deal of quality to work with  - and he left arguably their best player back in LA.

Clint Dempsey is their main man for goals and although he netted nine in 16 appearances for the Seattle Sounders last year, he didn't show much in his loan spell at Fulham. He will be partnered by Jozy Altidore and he hardly set the world alight at Sunderland last season either. The States have generally been scoring goals in their friendlies but they've been coming up against poor teams and when they face a decent defensive unit, they'll struggle to break them down.

Tonight's opponents are one of those teams as the Nigerians have an incredibly solid defence. They play on the break in a 4-3-3 formation and it's doubtful that USA will have the class to create many chances against them.

Things aren't as promising at the other end for The Super Eagles though as goals have largely been scarce of late. Stephen Keshi's men fired blanks against Mexico and Greece in two of their last three friendlies and prior to that they managed only one against Zimbabwe and drew another blank against Ghana.

Fenerbahce striker, Emmanuel Emenike, is their best source of goals and he finished as their top scorer during qualifying with a grand total of three - admittedly he did only play the final three games. Other than him though, Nigeria don't have any quality finishers as both Victor Moses and Ahmed Musa can be very hit or miss.

This fixture screams 0-0 or 1-0 either way to me and it's also worth bearing in mind that the players may not be putting in their all this close to the tournament given the recent late injuries to other high-profile players. That's why, with over 1.5 goals trading at around the 1.584/7 mark, I have to make it my lay of the day.  

Recommended Bet
Lay Over 1.5 goals in USA v Nigeria @ 1.584/7 

2014 P/L (1pt each bet)

Wagered: 154 pts
Returned: 169.96 pts
P/L: + 15.96 pts (after commission)
(2013 P/L: + 3.80 pts)
(2012 P/L: + 9.60 pts)