Bosnia-Herzegovina 3-1 Qatar: FIFA World Cup Match Report

Four goals, three of them before the interval: Bosnia-Herzegovina 3-1 Qatar was settled early and never seriously revisited. The half-time score of 2-1 tells you Qatar were in it briefly; the final score tells you they were not in it for long.

Both sides came into the last round of Group B on a single point, each taken from a 1-1 draw on the opening matchday — Bosnia-Herzegovina against Canada, Qatar against Switzerland. In between, both had been beaten heavily: Bosnia-Herzegovina 4-1 by Switzerland, Qatar 6-0 by Canada. Two teams arriving with identical points and wildly different goal differences, playing the one fixture in the group either could realistically expect to win.

Bosnia-Herzegovina's three goals here exceeded their output from the previous two matches combined. Their final group record of five scored and six conceded is composed almost entirely of two games at opposite extremes: the 4-1 defeat and this. Qatar's goal was their second of the tournament and their last; they finished with two scored and ten conceded from three matches.

It lifted Bosnia-Herzegovina to four points and level with Canada, who lost 2-1 to Switzerland on the same day. Switzerland took the group on seven; Canada and Bosnia-Herzegovina finished tied on four, separated in the final table by goal difference — Canada at plus five, Bosnia-Herzegovina at minus one.

Qatar finished bottom with one point from three matches and a goal difference of minus eight, comfortably the worst in the group. Their tournament produced a single draw and two defeats, and the progression from conceding six to conceding three suggests the gap only widened as the fortnight went on. The 1-1 with Switzerland on the opening day remains the outlier of their campaign rather than the standard it briefly appeared to set.

Our pre-match call was Double Chance 1X (Bosnia-Herzegovina or Draw) at 1.42. The fixture was the most predictable kind of final-round assignment — the stronger of two struggling sides against the weakest team in the group — and the hedge was arguably surplus to requirements. Bosnia-Herzegovina led at half-time and won by two.

Where the bet was less comfortable than the final score suggests is in that opening forty-five minutes. At 2-1 the match was one goal from level, and being pegged to a single-goal advantage by a side that had shipped six in its previous outing was not the script. The double chance covered a draw that never quite materialised but was not fanciful either.

Verdict: won