Russia 2018: Portugal and Spain To Light Up Group B

Reigning European champions, Portugal will open their 2018 world cup campaign against former world and European champions, Spain in what is an Iberian Derby.

In their first major tournament after triumphing at the 2016 European championship in France, Portugal will be looking to follow in the footsteps of West Germany (Euro 1972 and World Cup 1974) , France (1998 World Cup and Euro 2000) and Spain (Euro 2008, 2010 World Cup and Euro 2012) as the only the teams to have won back-to-back European and World championships.

The previous meeting between the two teams at the World Cup was in the knockout stage of the South Africa 2010 World Cup when Spain won 1-0 courtesy of a David Villa goal.

Spain were not overtly impressive on their final warm-up matches, playing a sloppy 1-1 draw with Switzerland and struggling to a 1-0 victory over Tunisia.

The Spanish side had the joint best defensive record along side England in the European qualifiers, conceding just three goals in the 10 games and were one of the few unbeaten teams.

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Portugal were inspired in their final warm up game by Cristiano Ronaldo who took a lengthy break following his triumph with Real Madrid in the Champions League to a simple victory over Algeria.

A big talking point coming into this game will definitely be the sack of coach Juan Lopetegui on the eve of the World Cup following the announcement of the Spanish coach as the man to take over from Zinedine Zidane at Real Madrid.

Sporting Director, Fernando Hierro has since taken charge of the team and has said he will most likely not alter too much what his predecessor has put in place.

No injury worry for both sides with Nacho Fernández set to replace Dani Carvajal who returned to training but may not be fit to start and Bruno Alves as well as Rui Fonte available to partner Pepe in the heart of Portugal's defence.

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This is one of the biggest, if not the biggest game we will see in the group stage of the World Cup.

MY PREDICTION

Portugal have a very good defence as well as Spain the difference might just boil down the the X-factor in both teams.

Portugal to win although the match looks like one to have goals.