If you've been around football long enough, you'll understand one thing: in the first round of the World Cup, what the coach on duty is thinking about is definitely not how to score goals, but how to keep his job. Brothers, don't be fooled by the media hype about things like the "Orange Army's flowing attack" or the "Blue Samurai's peerless possession play." After 20 years of analyzing the betting markets, we've come to one ironclad rule: in big-name, high-profile heavyweight clashes, the first round is often a dull battle. Tonight's game, trust me, pull up a little stool and go straight to the under 2.5 goals market to watch the show. 📌 Bookmakers' mindset: this 2.5-goal line is a "steel trap" Think about it: don't the Netherlands have a huge reputation? Haven't Japan been in great form with six straight wins lately? On paper, both sides look like teams that can score. If the bookmakers were really worried about goals, wouldn't they have opened the line at 2.75 or 3 goals right away and raised the bar nice and high? But what happened? They gave us 2.5 goals, and it's still been drifting down. That only shows how well the traders understand what both coaches are thinking. The bookmakers are using this line to tell you: tonight, neither team will dare to come out and go all-in first. Both sides want to take a point as the bottom line in their opening match, and a draw is fully acceptable. In a game like this, the one who gets impatient first is the one who gets burned. ⚽ Match script: two "cautious bosses" and their defensive buses Let's cut straight to the details of tonight's match: After the warm-up loss to Algeria, Koeman is under serious pressure now. He will definitely demand that Virgil van Dijk and Micky van de Ven lock things down at the back, and he absolutely won't allow right-back Denzel Dumfries to keep bombing forward recklessly like before. Once the Netherlands start playing more conservatively, the midfield tempo slows down, and the match turns into that sleep-inducing, tear-inducing kind of "pass it around for no reason" football. Then look at Hajime Moriyasu. This guy is a master of the high-level "choose the weak horse in a race" approach at the World Cup. In the first half, he will definitely set up in a deep defensive block, with Wataru Endo and Hidemasa Morita wreaking havoc in midfield and breaking the game up into pieces. His plan is crystal clear: try to make it 0-0 at halftime, drain the Dutch players' stamina, and then bring on quicker players after the 60-minute mark to steal one. Since both teams want to play on the counter, neither side will want to take the initiative and push forward in possession. So how is this supposed to turn into a high-scoring game? 🚨 A dose of cold water: an old hand's anti-trap guide for following the bet Even though I'm extremely confident in the under 2.5 goals, this is real money we're talking about, so we can't just blindly hype it up. Even an old veteran has to guard against an upset from nowhere. The only two unstable factors tonight are: A low-level defensive blunder from either side: both goalkeepers, Justin Bijlow and Zion Suzuki, are part of the younger generation. Under the pressure of a big tournament opener, if one of them tries to play it out from the back and gifts a goal, or gives away a penalty, then the whole script changes. A moment of magic to break the deadlock: a Takumi Minamino free kick, or Cody Gakpo suddenly unleashing a world-class strike from outside the box. If a goal goes in within the first 30 minutes, the team that falls behind will be forced to push up and attack. An experienced bettor's practical strategy: If you're itching to get involved, just take full-time under 2.5 goals from the opening line. For correct score, aim straight for 1-1 or 1-0, those ultra-pragmatic, veteran-style results. If, in the first 20 minutes, bad luck really does strike and a wonder goal makes it 1-0, don't panic, brothers. The live line will almost certainly jump to 3.5 goals, and at that point, decisively add another bet on over 3.5 goals. Use an old hand's strategy to hedge the risk, and tonight you'll sit back and cash in comfortably!