Ecuador v Argentina Betting: High-scoring affair as Messi looks to continue World Cup dream

There have been many lows and precious few highs in Argentina's bewilderingly poor World Cup qualifying campaign.

The Albiceleste began seemingly as they meant to carry on by losing their opening game 2-0 at home to their opponents in this week's final game, Ecuador.

From there, there was a 1-0 home defeat by Paraguay, failure to beat rock bottom side Venezuela either home or away, as well as a 2-0 loss in the altitude of Bolivia; La Paz, of course, is the highest capital city in the world, and Bolivia lose few home qualifiers, although worryingly for Argentina their last qualifying game takes place in the planet's second most elevated capital city, Quito.

RODRIGO BUENDIA/AFP/Getty Images

The Ecuadorian capital has been a tough place to visit for the two time World Cup winners, with Argentina failing to win on each of their last three visits and their only victory in recent memory coming back in 2001. 

If the geographical conditions are against the Albiceleste, then the footballing circumstances favour them with Ecuador having nothing to play for, and five successive defeats make them CONMEBOL's most out of form team.

Woefully low on confidence and with nothing at stake, Ecuador therefore make the perfect opponents for Argentina despite the altitude and bet365, who are live streaming the game for UK-based customers offer an away win at 4/9 (1.44). Ecuador, meanwhile, are offered at 6/1 (7.00) to record their fifth home win of the campaign, with the draw offered at 10/3 (4.33).,

The most inexplicable aspect of Argentina's qualifying struggles has, without doub,t been their failure in front of goal, with only Bolivia netting fewer than their total of 16 strikes. Blessed with one of the most talented collection of attacking individuals ever assembled, manager Jorge Sampaoli must find a way to harness their collective skill, with the side in recent months relying almost entirely on Lionel Messi.

Despite their problems in the final third, Argentina must surely be fancied to find the back of the net in this crucial game, although keeping a clean sheet will not be straight forward.

Ecuador, for their part, have netted 25 times in this CONMENBOL qualifying tournament, and at home they have scored in 20 of their last 22 qualifiers; their weakness, though, has been in defence, and in their last game we backed Ecuador to score but lose in Chile, with that selection paying out at healthy odds of 2/1.

The price, therefore, of evens (2.00) for both teams to score in the early hours on Wednesday morning looks appealing, with Argentina having conceded in five of their last six qualifiers on the road and Ecuador boasting a formidable home scoring road.