World Cup Qualification UEFA 2nd Round preview: Portugal vs North Macedonia

Portugal News:

Joao Cancelo is available having served a ban and is expected to start at right-back at Diogo Dalot's expense.

Other than that, Fernando Santos may elect against making any further changes to the side that started against Portugal.

That would see Danilo Pereira start alongside Jose Fonte in defence and Otavio keep his place in attack.

 

North Macedonia News:

Eljif Elmas and Tihomir Kostadinov return follows bans for North Macedonia, who potentially lose Boban Nikolov after he was taken off against Italy on Thursday night.

The duo are expected to return to the midfield for Tuesday's World Cup playoff showdown with Portugal.

Bojan Miovski is hoping his assist for Aleksandar Trajkovski's winner against Italy will see him start in place of Milan Ristovski.

 

Prediction

Portugal rode their luck a little on Thursday night in their 3-1 win over Turkey. Burak Yilmaz's penalty miss late one saw the experienced striker blow the chance to draw Turkey level, before Matheus Nunes wrapped up the victory in injury time.

North Macedonia upset the odds to beat Italy 1-0 in Palermo in their playoff game. They have now won four of their last five World Cup qualifying matches and have now sprung upsets against both Germany and Italy in the last 12 months.

North Macedonia are not to be underestimated on Tuesday night, but Portugal should get the job done in Porto to book their Qatar 2022 spot.