No games tomorrow as it’s Christmas Day but the madness of English football and the festive period starts on Boxing Day. We’ll keep the site up to date and Merry Christmas to our users from the Simple Soccer Stats team.
Simple Weekend (FIFA Club World Cup)
In the week we posted this about the Club World Championship and it took a late goal by Real Madrid to secure the 2 goal victory and therefore any stake on Real Madrid -2 on the Asian Handicap was returned.
They play again today and you have to go back 11 matches to the final in 2009 to find the last time a European team did not win by 2 goals or more. Since the change of format in 12 of the last 13 matches the European teams have shown the gulf in glass in this tournament and won by 2 goals or more. The price on the Asian Handicap for Real Madrid -2 is around 1.8 and really looks a solid bet based on that stat.
European Teams in the World Club Championship (1 year on)
Last year we published this article about the World Club Championship and both bets were winners. We have updated the data to include those results and now we have all matches from 2009 to 2015 and the results are shown below
| Date | Team 1 | Score | Team 2 | -2 AH | -2.5AH |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 20.12.2015 | River Plate | 0-3 | Barcelona | Win | Win |
| 17.12.2015 | Barcelona | 3-0 | Guangzhou Evergrande | Win | Win |
| 20.12.2014 | Real Madrid | 2-0 | San Lorenzo | Void | Lose |
| 16.12.2014 | Cruz Azul | 0-4 | Real Madrid | Win | Win |
| 21.12.2013 | Bayern Munich | 2-0 | Raja Casablanca | Void | Lose |
| 17.12.2013 | Guangzhou Evergrande | 0-3 | Bayern Munich | Win | Win |
| 18.12.2011 | Santos | 0-4 | Barcelona | Win | Win |
| 15.12.2011 | Al-Sadd | 0-4 | Barcelona | Win | Win |
| 18.12.2010 | Mazembe | 0-3 | Inter | Win | Win |
| 15.12.2010 | Seongnam | 0-3 | Inter | Win | Win |
| 19.12.2009 | Estudiantes L.P. | 1-1* | Barcelona | Lose | Lose |
| 16.12.2009 | Atlante | 3-1 | Barcelona | Void | Lose |
The European team plays just 2 matches in this tournament and in those 12 matches have conceeded goals in only 2 and none in the last 5 years. It seems clear there is a big gulf in class between the European teams and the others in this and the -2 Asian Handicap looks an interesting bet as this has lost just once in that time and that was in the final in 2009. In all the semi final matches the European teams have managed to score 3 goals or more.
Bet Victor are offering 1.87 (was 1.9 when the article was started) on the Asian Handicap -2 and that looks a good bet.
Simple Weekend (Mentality)
When betting on football one of the hardest things is riding the losing runs. There has been a lot written about that kind of thing and last year a few of us in the office read Trading Bases by Joe Peta which is a great story of a year betting on Baseball. It’s a very interesting read and talks about the ups and downs and nearly got some of us interested in baseball.
The reason we write this is because we have been following a system for a number of years and it really was struggling. We’ve written about it before and we call it Island Hopping and involves backing certain teams based on Islands in European Leagues. Things always change and you start doubting your ideas and second guessing yourself but handily we kept the stakes high and last Friday night were rewarded when Maritimo won at home to Benfica at a price of 10.0. Such an enormous price for a home winner and highlighted again to us the importance of discipline and belief. It’s a great system again!
The Difficult Weekend
This week and next weekend will be difficult ones to post on. Apologies for that and hopefully back to normal on 9th December.