Category: Football trading strategies
By the skin of their teeth
Last night I forecasted around 24 goals and we ended up with 22. I should have used a decimal place as my spreadsheet actually said 23.5, but forecasting half a goal often doesn’t make sense to some readers! Tonight I am aiming for 22.75 and we have a generally more competitive set up for the matches tonight. Dortmund caught my eye on the last round and I’ll be looking closely at their match with Real Madrid this evening. I’m not …
A evening that’s overs before its started?
Not quite as uncompetitive as the recent International football but still some, theoretically, one sided matches this evening.
I’ve just ploughed through my spreadsheets and they seem to be forecasting around 24 goals this evening. On eight matches that averages out to just under three a game, hence the headline. Most goals are expected in the Barcelona, no surprise there, and least in the BATE v Valencia match, but most are towards the higher end of the scale. Curiously this …
A remarkable evening
That was an interesting night.
For some reason the polish officials thought that with a large weather front moving over Poland full of rain, it was a good idea to let the pitch get completely waterlogged by not closing the roof. Echos of June & Euro 2012, though that was a bit further to the east. Any how, onto what did take place….
It was good to see Portugal engaging in austerity, unfortunately for their fans it was in front …
Money buyers of the world unite!
World Cup qualifiers are the order of the day again and we have some highly uncompetitive matches on the card. So uncompetitive you would be sorely tempted to re-mortgage the house and lump it on a few on these matches. The Czech’s are 1.08 to beat the mighty Malta at home. If that’s not good enough, Netherlands at 1.01 to attack Andorra looks tempting. But the daddy of them all is England to beat San Marino at 1.01. Surely worth …
Mass aggregation
A rather opaque title for a football post.
This evening we have the Europa league football and I like this stage of the tournament because, as I mentioned in my other post recently, the mass of markets means I can make a hash of things and most likely still end in profit. Actually I didn’t say that, I said that you could improve your expectation of a profit by spreading your risk. But I hope you see what I …
Hedge your bets
Last night in the champions league we had a range of generally uncompetitive matches. Only Galatasaray vs Braga exhibited the characteristics of a match that could potentially be tight.
Of course you can never quite tell in Football. The average number of goals scored is quite low so results can be highly variable. A ball in the back of the net off a ‘wicked’ deflection, why are all deflections ‘wicked’?, could easily see a side take the lead unexpectedly. From …
Careful with your Europa league research
Looking forward to the slew of Europe league matches this evening. But anecdotally I have to remind myself to be careful with my early round research.
Could have been last year or the year before, but my wife confronted me with some words after she went to use Google and it showed the suggestion ‘Young boys’. Suspicions rose even more when I tried to explain by telling here ‘Young boys come from Wankdorf’, talk about digging yourself in a hole! …
A perfect start to the Champions League
Well that was just a fantastic start to the Champions league group stages! Let’s hope the remaining fixtures bring up a few similar results. It’s easy to use the oft quoted, and often misused, phrase ‘It was a traders dream’, but it was!
Both the Man City and Arsenal games, where there was the bulk of liquidity, ended up in situations where if you backed or laid either team or the draw before the off you could have traded out …
Football trading – Who scores first?
A decent question to ask about a football match.
I first asked this question back in the early 80’s to help resolve the problem of forecasting draws. I knew that if the outsider scored first the chance of a draw was higher, but just how often did this happen?
The answer was a lot more than I imagined. But slowly I began to gain an appreciation of why. Over the full 90 minutes one teams advantage tends to bear out …
When to bet on your own team
I’m a strong advocate of not betting / trading on your own team when watching a sport. I like to have a reasoned logical approach to things and trying to place a position on a team that you follow can seriously mess up your head and result in taking positions in hope rather than for a profit. So therefore I don’t bet or trade on teams I follow.
However, there is one time though where I do tend to have …
Trading ‘to be relegated’ markets…
As the new season is upon us all football fans up and down the country will no doubt have fresh hopes about what the season will bring. Transfers will have been done and hopes raised. But what is it that makes a team successful? What is the most defining characteristic. That’s simple, it’s money!
Comparing the finishing positions of premier league teams over a number of seasons and several Deloitte reports, reveals a strong correlation each year between wage bill …
Has Athletics shown up football?
I’m still buzzing from all the Olympics action we have been privileged to see recently.
People stretching every sinew of their body for that elusive and hard fought honour, an Olympic medal. A chance to say there were the best in the world. Great honour in representing their country, whether they win or now. Years of training, pushing themselves to the limit of their bodies and stretching what is humanly possible.
Contrast that with the current state of professional football.…
Are Celtic better than a savings account?
When news came out that Rangers will start the Scottish season in divisions three, my head started spinning at all the permutations for next season. I always remember the fantastic Gretna, who rose from obscurity to become the punter and traders best friend, then promptly vanished as fast as they had risen.
In this case it’s almost the opposite. Rangers have been unceremoniously dumped from their elite status to the lower ranks of Scottish football. If Rangers can keep …
The camera never lies?
I stumbled upon an interesting article about the Euro 2012 championships: –
How TV Lied To You During Euro 2012 – https://deadspin.com/5923264/sorry-mario-balotelli-didnt-really-make-this-german-fan-cry-how-tv-lied-to-you-during-euro-2012
I’ve always had a healthy mistrust of what you see on TV. It spawned from some very odd results and betting on Reality TV shows many years ago. Careful editing and production can show up a story that isn’t, in reality, being played out. The real scandal followed though when it turned out insiders where betting on the …
Spain vs Italy
An interesting set up for the final. I’ve had a really busy week, again, so I’ll be taking it easy and will trade pre-off, but sit down and watch the match.
The match is priced for just over two goals with an extra 0.40 going to Spain. It’s basically saying you have two even teams but Spain are effectively at ‘home’.
I know I often post this sort of comments, but I’m not sure if people pay much attention to …
Extra time and the ‘to qualify’ market
At last this week, I have finally got the chance to have a play around in the ‘to qualify’ markets in extra time.
These are some of my favourite in-play markets on footy because you can, to a certain extent, frame your upside and downside risk. The downside will always be a goal, but the upside is relatively neat and frequent on both teams.
As the teams play out extra time, if the match remains level, the odds on either …
Italy vs Italy
I looked long and hard at this evening’s match in Kiev and I, like the market, am finding it difficult to split the result.
I think the main reason for this is that I think both sides will cancel each other out. We have become used to Italian football being based around defense counter attacking play. Now England seems to have adopted this style as well. That seems to position the match for a low scoring nail-biter. Cue, a dramatic …
A different way to profit from Euro 2012
As you know Euro 2012 is a seeded tournament. When the little balls came out of the bag it was designed so that the higher ranked teams would progress to the latter stages of the tournament and make UEFA more money, sorry, make the tournament more entertaining.
To be fair to UEFA, it is the same in most modern tournaments, the big teams and big audiences fund the sport and therefore want to be favoured. Tennis grand slams are …
England v Ukraine
Since 1990 England have won 5/9 final group games while they are unbeaten since 1996 in nine matches against teams ranked 20-40 with six wins and eight of the nine matches finished with fewer than three goals. In group game three there have been 43 matches where a team has been ranked 11-30 places higher and that side has won 27 (63%) times. Moreover, this improves to a W15-D3-L4 record when they have won their previous match.
Information provided by …
Croatia 2 Spain 2 ?
Some of you with long memories may recognise this scenario from Euro 2004. Back then Denmark and Sweden need a 2-2 draw to ensure they progress to the knockout phase of the tournament at the expense of Italy. Remarkably the game ended 2-2 to howls of protests from the Italians.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UEFA_Euro_2004_Group_C#Denmark_vs_Sweden
Wind forward to 2012 and we have a similar situation. However, Croatia and Spain have tried to quash conspiracy theorists who suggest the two sides would settle for a …
Sweden v England
Sweden’s defeat against Ukraine means a result here is essential and they will probably need a significant improvement. Lower ranked teams that have lost their previous match and are playing a side coming off a draw have lost 7/11 Euro group stage matches with 6/11 having -2.5 goals including all five second group games.
11 of Sweden’s 19 tournament matches since 2000 have had -2.5 goals while they’ve drawn six of their last eight group matches against higher ranked teams …
What we learnt about England
It’s always worth looking at Statistics to tell you what really went on in a football match, rather than what you think you saw. So with that in mind here is a round up of some stats on the England match: –
First stop has to be be ‘fourfourtwo’ as it contains the most comprehensive and objective analysis of the match. Click here to read it in its full glory. There is an app you can download from iTunes which …
The science of choking
With England due into action today I thought this may be an appropriate topic.
I will be watching the England match with great interest. Primarly to see how the England players settle in against the French. Will the weight of expectation weigh on their shoulders, or will the lack of expectation relax them and allow them to perform to their full ability? If the latter happens then that could be quite interesting with England trading at larger odds than normal. …
England expects….. Not very much
So here we are at the dawn of the Euro 2012 championships, full of hope optimism and … well, to be honest, if you are English you may be dreading it. So it reserve the optimism for other nationalities.
This must be the first tournament where universal optimism for England from English fans has vanished. Each tournament England fans generally go from skeptical to optimistic as the tournament approaches and the generally feeling on day one is ‘You know what, …
Di Matteo probably shouldn’t get the job
Congratulations to Chelsea on a remarkable champions league campaign. The campaign showed up the wonderful variability that is a football. Di Matteo and Chelsea must be on top of the world this morning, but if Chelsea are to build on this they need to start thinking about a new path for the future.
I see the win last night as the culmination of a very long campaign for Chelsea, but increased competition in the premiership means it’s time to build …
Champions league final
Is Chelsea’s name written on the cup?
Before we start, don’t forget to have a play with Soccer Mystic the unique profiling tool contained within Bet Angel.
It never pays to be emotional about anything that you are trying to make money on, and you could be excused for looking for a fairy tale tonight. But the reality is that Chelsea have a tough ask this evening. On the flip side, as we have seen recently, anything can happen …
Next manager markets
Not so long ago I asked for more next manager markets. We now have three in play at once!
We have managerial vacanies at West Brom, Liverpool and Aston Villa . The interesting this about these markets is that there are a number of mutually exclusive outcomes. For example, Roberto Martinez can not be manager of all three, so two of his prices in the other markets must be false; but which ones?
I don’t actually try and make special …
Some key stats from Man City vs QPR
Well that was an interesting match wasn’t it? I went from thinking ‘I’d hate to be a Man City fan right now’ to ‘I’d love to be a Man City right now’, all in the space of a few minutes. You go all season without losing at home then almost blow it on what should have been one of the easiest matches of the lot. It was like Barcelona vs Chelsea but in reverse.
In total the match odds market …
A tale of last day relegation
Last day of the premiership today, hoping for a few twists and turns on the last day.
I recently watched Southampton get promoted to the Premiership. It’s the end of a seven year wait and has finally exorcised the ghost of relegation from seven years ago. But for me it also has been a point of closure after I sent my team down seven years ago! Well I say I sent my team down, I didn’t, but it felt like …
Cardiff fans turn red over blue
Continuing the blue theme from yesterday. Cardiff fans up in arms as the bluebirds look like they will be forced to change colour. Full story: –
However, the owner may have a point. I pointed out some scientific research on a previous blog post. One element of this was looking at the effect of red and blue and how it affects sports performance or the interpretations of officials in sports tournaments. The results were fascinating.
See the original blog …
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