Guinea U23 vs New Zealand U23 Prediction: Guinea to win and no BTTS

Group A of the men's football competition at the 2024 Summer Olympics in Paris will be opened between Guinea and New Zealand on Wednesday at the Allianz Riviera in Nice. The African nation is participating in its first Olympics since 1968, and New Zealand attended the postponed Tokyo 2020 Olympics and placed sixth.

Three of Guinea's overage players, including Naby Keita, a former midfielder for RB Leipzig and Liverpool who had a nightmare first season at Werder Bremen, are in Diawara's midfield ranks. Amadou Diawara of Anderlecht and Abdoulaye Toure of Le Havre both contribute invaluable experience to the engine room, where Moriba—who hasn't quite lived up to his full potential at the club level—should also start.

The majority of Guinea's players are from Ligue 1 or Ligue 2, including Soumaila Sylla, the 20-year-old goalkeeper who is supposed to be the final line of defence in a 4-2-3-1 formation.

Regarding New Zealand, Bazeley has selected a few players from around the world, and Alex Paulsen, who recently joined Bournemouth, should be his first-choice goalkeeper for the length of the Olympics. Along with Ben Waine of Plymouth Argyle and Tyler Bindon of Reading, Paulsen is one of three players in the ranks who are based in England. However, Waine will have fierce competition for playing time on the offensive end. Riley Bidois, a 22-year-old American football player for Loudoun United in the second division, scored five of New Zealand's nine goals against Fiji.

Guinea only sent one men's football team to the 1968 Olympics, where they finished in the group stage with only one victory. Guinea was only participating in their second men's football competition at the Olympics. The National Elephants are finally returning to the quadrennial spectacular with much anticipation due to their achievements on the continent. Last year, they advanced to the semifinals of the Under-23 Africa Cup of Nations.

Even though Guinea lost 1-0 against Mali, who together with Morocco and Egypt automatically qualified for the Games, they were granted another chance in the AFC–CAF playoff, with Indonesia standing in their way of a trip to Paris.

The penalty that ended Guinea's Olympic men's football ban was scored by former Barcelona player Ilaix Moriba with just under 30 minutes remaining. Despite this, few people believe Kaba Diawara's team will surpass France or the USA to place in the top two.

Nonetheless, Guinea's 1-0 victory over Indonesia is the second of three straight victories; Mohamed Soumah's goal against Argentina on July 19 was also decided by the same score in a friendly; yet, New Zealand was unstoppable in scoring goals during qualifying.

Olympic qualifying was little more than a training exercise, as New Zealand won all three of their OFC group matches, defeating Fiji 3-1 and Papua New Guinea 3-0, the latter of whom was forced to forfeit their match. The OlyWhites then easily defeated Vanuatu 8–0 in the semifinals, and then, astoundingly, they managed to surpass themselves when they faced Fiji again in the championship game, scoring nine goals in a row to defeat their previous group rivals.

Consequently, New Zealand, who did not go past the group stage in either their Beijing 2008 or London 2012 campaigns, will be making their fourth Games appearance from five Olympics. However, in terms of knockout qualification, the third time around proved to be lucky. In fact, the Whites made it to the Tokyo quarterfinals but were devastated by Japan's penalty kicks. Their single warm-up match against Uzbekistan on July 18 ended in a 3-1 loss at the Allianz Riviera.

Before testing their cunning against Guinea, Bazeley's squad at least had a taste of the Nice surroundings; the tough battles against France and the United States come next.

As ruthless as New Zealand was throughout their qualification phase, Guinea is a far more resilient nation.

Examining the attacking analytics, Guinea U23 has an advantage over New Zealand U23 offensively, with an average home xG (expected goals) of 1.17 compared to 1.01 away. On defense, the disparity widens. Guinea U23's strong defense, as evidenced by their home team's average xG against of just 0.67, will put New Zealand U23 to the test, as they give up an average xG of 1.48 when traveling.

We anticipate a win for Guinea with potential scoreline of 1-0 or 2-0.