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I'll start with Portugal's win in straight sets over Finland last week. They won the first two in rather lucky manner but beating Finland in straight sets cannot be a coincidence. That is why I was surprised that the bookies see Finland as the favorites here. I have to admit the Portuguese surprised me in qualifiers, especially in offense where a few of their players often goes over 10 points. Only Finland had that so far. Portugal won only one of the 4 games in straight sets. Finals also one and their matches against Denmark and Sweden finished well over. Portugal have 190 and 188 points with Denmark, 210 with Sweden, while Finland have 167 in 4 sets with Denmark and 180 and 145 points with Sweden. This is the key match for the top spot and stakes are high which, as a rule, means a battle for each point. They have a match in 5 sets this season (214 points) from World League which was also played in Finland. Going a bit further back in the past, only two out of 8 h2h matches were settled in straight sets. They went over this margin 6 times (179, 209, 193, 183, 207, 219). That combined with how important this game is, the h2h record and the quality of these teams, 174,5 seems really low. I don't think we'll see just three sets. That seems realistic only in a crazy game by Finland, which they have not displayed so far. A realistic margin is at least 5-6 points higher.