I have just seen that Pavel Pogrenniak has a knee injury and may miss the tournament. If you were thinking of backing him please don't! I'll keep the bet in for my records though.

I will have a few bets for this tournament. Not too many but enough to spark some interest. Might add another ante post bet for the winner but then will concentrate on the matches.

Last time round in the European Championships Milan Baros was top goalscorer and I know he was available at 40/1 before the tournament. I always think bookmakers are poor at pricing up this kind of market and just go for the big teams and their players, and often end up with midfielders highly featured.

I thought it would be worth doing some analysis. As there aren’t that many European Championships I will incorporate the world cup as well.

First up the top goalscorers

European Championships :: player – country – goals (finishing position)

2004 – Milan Baros – CzechRepublic – 5 (knocked out in semis)

2000 – Patrick Kluivert – Netherlands – 5 (knocked out in semis)

2000 – Savo Milosevic – Yugoslavia – 5 (knocked out in quarter finals)

1996 – Alan Shearer – England – 5 (knocked out in semi finals)

*

1992 four players managed just 3 goals (need to ignore this)

1988 – Marco Van Basten – Netherlands – 5 (Won)

1984 – Michel Platini – France – 9 (Won)

* The games from 1992 were one less and so I think the results are less meaningful

World Cup :: player – country – goals (finishing position)

2006 – Miroslav Klose – Germany – 5 (3rd)

2002 – Ronaldo – Brazil – 8 (Won)

1998 – Davor Suker – Croatia – 6 (3rd)

1994 – Hristo Stoichkov – Bulgaria – 6 (4th)

1994 – Oleg Salenko – Russia – 6 (knocked out in quarter finals)

1990 – Salvatore Schillaci – Italy – 6  (3rd)

1986 – Gary Lineker – England – 6 (knocked out in quarter finals)

1982 – Paulo Rossi – Italy – 6 (Won)

What does this tell us? Firstly, it looks like there’s very little correlation between winning the tournament and being top goalscorer. You have to go back to 1992 in the Euros to find that and it was a Dane with 3 goals or back to 1982 in the World Cup to find the only player aside from Ronaldo to manage the feat.

Quite a few of these players would not have been fancied to achieve what they did so you can look past the favourites.

A quick mental note needs to be made that since Mario Kempes in 1978 Ronaldo is the only other non-European to walk away with the top goalscorer.

We are left with 13 tournaments to analyse and if we drop 2002 we are left with 12 (13 winners) but all European winners so that makes sense. It’s not a big sample size but players from countries in Eastern Europe have won it 5/13 and players from England, Italy and Netherlands twice.

I wanted to look at how players had scored in qualifying but it seemed nigh on impossible to find historical data. So what I could find, mainly thanks to Wikipedia and Eurosport, was how many goals they had scored at club level

European Championships :: player – team (country) – league goals

2004 – Milan Baros – Liverpool (England) – 1 goal

2000 – Patrick Kluivert – Barcelona (Spain) – 15 goals

2000 – Savo Milosevic – Real Zaragoza (Spain) – 23 goals

1996 – Alan Shearer – Blackburn (England) – 31 goals

1992 four players managed just 3 goals (need to ignore this)

1988 – Marco Van Basten – AC Milan (Italy) – 3 goals

1984 – Michel Platini – Juventus (Italy) – 20 goals

World Cup :: player – country – goals (finishing position)

2006 – Miroslav Klose – Werder Bremen (Germany) – 25 goals

2002 – Ronaldo

1998 – Davor Suker – Real Madrid (Spain) – 10 goals

1994 – Hristo Stoichkov – Barcelona (Spain) – unknown

1994 – Oleg Salenko – Logrones (Spain) – 16 goals

1990 – Salvatore Schillaci – Juventus (Italy) – unknown

1986 – Gary Lineker – Everton (England) – 30 goals

1982 – Paulo Rossi – Perugia (Italy) – unknown

What does this tell us? Well the main thing is that 9 of the 13 winners played in Italy or Spain and 12 of the 13 in Spain, Italy or England but that really doesn’t narrow it down much. Only English, Italian and German players have won the top goalscorer playing in their home league.

It does tell us you don’t need a fantastic season to go on and win it.

No one has done it more than once and for that reason I want to drop Klose. Looking at the players above Schillaci came in after a few games, Salenko I don’t know about, but the rest of them were the focal point for their team in terms of goals.

I had a bet last week on Pavel Pogrebniak. Although he doesn’t fit the standard profile of playing in the big league, which will be the case for more Russians now with the money they have, he appeals a lot. Top scored in the UEFA cup, bagged twice in Russias last two matches and takes the penalties. His price has come in to 50/1 but I think its still great value.

Nihat from Turkey I also like. Plays in Spain and had a great season with Villareal. Scored in bursts and will be the main man for Turkey.

Allesandro Del Piero has had a great season in Italy. Talk was he might not even make the squad but he did and with lumpy Luca Toni up front he looks to be a good option for Donadoni. He won’t start but maybe he’ll come on, score and be hard to leave out.

SELECTIONS (1/2pt e/w)

Pavel Pogrenniak 50/1 :: 1/2pt e/w (1/4 odds 1st 4) – Ladbrokes/Tote/Blue Sq/Hills

Nihat 66/1 :: 1/2pt e/w (1/4 odds 1st 4) – most bookmakers including Bet365

Del Piero 66/1 :: 1/2pt e/w (1/4 odds 1st 4) – Blue Sq

The last set of games that feature in the Simple Soccer Stats console brings an end to this blog. At the start of this season when I launched the site this did not feature in my plans but a few people said it might enhance the site and I confess to having enjoyed doing it. A respectable points total has been achieved and a lot of lessons learnt.

I spent a large part of Thursday morning in a hospital canteen scribbling out plans for upgrades over the summer and have grand plans for next season. I want to push the site on and make huge improvements and just get way ahead of every other stats site. I keep repeating this but if you have any comments on anything you like or don’t like or would like to see it is always appreciated and I can be e-mailed on mail@simplesoccerstats.com.

I was in the hospital canteen as my wife was being checked over as we have a baby due on Tuesday. I think it has kindly decided to wait until after the football season and I should be ok with my final updates on Monday!

Enough of that though. Very hard to find games this weekend. Italy is interesting as the top 2 both play teams in the relegation dogfight who need to win so that’s 4 teams for whom a draw is no good. I can’t bring myself to bet on Italy at this time of year as the results last season were so bizarre it almost looks fixed. France has some very interesting battles with one champions league place up for grabs as well as a UEFA cup spot. Spain just has one EUFA cup spot in the balance as well as 4 teams who could be the final team to relegated.

SSS Tips

Just two bets this weekend

Toulouse v Valenciennes (france – sat 8:50pm local time)

It’s a correct score bet here. Toulouse are out the relegation zone on goal difference and need a win here to be safe. If you like goals don’t go to Toulouse as 16/18 home games have been under 2.5 goals which is enormous. On 1^st September they scored 2 goals against Auxerre and in the remaining 17 have scored once ten times and not scored 7 times. I think they’ll score on Saturday, as Valenciennes have kept a clean sheet in just 4/17 away games, so 1 goal seems the obvious choice. Valenciennes have scored just 8 goals away this season and just 3 in the last 12 away games. Toulouse have leaked a few recently but 1-0 looks a good option in a tight nervy game. 1-1 was the only other score I wanted to cover but I’m prepared to risk it all on 1-0.
++ Correct Score – 1-0 @ 6.5 on Bet365/VC/Boyles (1pt)

Real Mallorca v Real Zaragoza (spain – sun 9pm local time)

Last weekend both these teams featured and Mallorca landed a bet whilst we went against Zaragoza in a bet that was voided. This is the game in Spain this weekend. With Racing Santander facing a tough game at home against Osasuna who are in relegation trouble Real Mallorca know a win could see them steal the last UEFA cup spot. Zaragoza on the other hand know a loss relegates them, a draw may too and only a win makes them safe. There must be goals and the quotes of both teams to score being around 1.45 show the bookies believe this too. Zaragoza have surprised me of late beating Deportivo and getting a draw with Real Madrid last weekend but they were at home in both those games and, as I said last week, their strikers could not hit a cows arse with a banjo. Away from home they have been dire and have won just once all season back in October losing 6 of the last 8. They have scored just 12 goals on their travels and more than one goal just once. Mallorca are on fire and with just 2 losses in the last 19 games and 5 wins on the bounce including the 3-2 (from 2-0 down) win in CampNou last weekend. They have won 3-2, 2-1, 2-1, 3-1 and 4-1 in the last 5 games and only not scored once in the last 19 games. Guiza looks like he’ll take the Pichichi (top goalscorer) this season but might just want to make sure with a goal. I could see Mallorca being ahead and Zaragoza pushing and getting caught out and losing by a few. Paddy Power offer 7 on Mallorca to win by 2 but I wonder if they might even get more as they have scored 7 at home in one game this season. For this though I’ll play safe and take them in the AH with a half stake return on the draw.
++ Asian Handicap – Real Mallorca (0, -0.5) @ 2.13 on Bet365 (1pt)

2 points staked

Spinner Rinse

With the rinse being down over 20 points we just have to go for it. Marseille to beat Strasbourg in France, Stuttgart to beat Bielefled and Schalke to win at Nurnburg in Germany, as well as Cagliari to beat Reggina in Italy and Mallorca to beat Zaragoza in Spain.
++ Five-fold accumulator @ 24.65 on Bet365.

NOTES

All games will be updated on Monday morning and a season summary.