I don't buy that at all. That game was twelve years ago (hard to believe), eons ago in soccer terms, and this Portugal side is an entirely new creation with five straight knockout round runs in major tournaments to their credit. I highly doubt they'll be looking for revenge, there certainly is a chance they'll underestimate our side, but I doubt it. At the end of the day Portugal is just an inconsistent side with a wealth of outstanding small sample size tournament performances over the past decade, and a persistent issue in the larger sample size that is qualifying (they've won about 2/3's of their qualifiers since 2007, and have struggled repeatedly at home and on the road against sides they're clearly better then. They are totally unpredictable, and extremely hard to figure. Only thing I can say is that we need to out-tough them in terms of mental toughness and grit. This is a side that has won 3 consecutive hard fought win the playoff or you go home situations in the past four years, and has found a way to advance out of every group they've been in no matter how difficult in five straight tourney's. They're a mentally tough, grind out the result kind of team, and we have to out-grit them if we're going to win. Have to mark Ronaldo out of the match, and steal a goal for the 1-0 win somehow. No idea what will happen, really, really hard side to predict, one of the most difficult sides to project in the whole tourney.
Odds are based on casinos, and betting services balancing their own evaluations versus what the sharps and public are likely to do to balance the vig so they make money. If they set up a line that's foolish, big money will tilt the line to a correction, and there will be a risk in play if it's particularly heavily bet upon. There are no better evaluators than these guys and they have to play these odds right to continue to build casinos rather than blow them up. You can see how big the business is by all the fraud/match fixing being perpetrated out of China and Russia etc. Betting is big business, and nothing is more important than being on point with your projections. Just bear in mind that these projections are always based on their evaluations of the teams AND their evaluation of the public and the sharps. Both aspects play a key role, so sometimes lines, or odds will be impacted by fan bases noted for betting more heavily, or more homerishly (I imagine you can get better odds on the Niners in Atlantic City than you can in Lake Tahoe, for instance).
For sure, if you can get one of those sweet cards which lets you bet Final Winner/Finalist, even better. There are some really unusual odds, it seems quite clear that the oddsmakers are buying into the South American advantage angle. I don't entirely understand why Italy's odds are so incredibly low, I thought they were a steal back in '05 when I bought them at 12-1, but this is ridiculous.
Serbia had a lot of love in '06 and '10, but it was based on their defending, not their attack. Serbia shut down everybody in '05 qualifying, and in