It’s back and about time. Not sure how next week will be with 3 whole days off! Excellent matchups in this round and Brazil v Colombia the pick for me. Loved this tweet from @benjaminpugsley showing how much time Colombia have been ahead in the tournament and that is the key here as they have not been stuck in draws when they need to break the deadlock or been behind. If Colombia do go ahead and we get into the second half I expect Brazil to score as Colombia defend very deep and as Brazil’s team is so lopsided with attackers it will suit them perfectly.

Lots of extra time in the first round and I saw the following tweet from @SportingbetMark.

I had a dig around the results and went back to 1986 as in 1982 they had some silly double group system. I excluded finals and 3rd place playoffs as there is no game after and that leaves 32 matches with 32 teams progressing. The topline stat from this is that just 11 of the teams who played extra time (not just penalties) progressed and as 4 of the matches featured teams that had both come through extra time removing those we have just 7 of 24 teams that played extra time won their next match. It is true that the weaker teams are more likely to feature in extra time but that is still a strong stat.

The record is poor mainly due to teams going to penalty shootouts with just 5/19 progressing and again 2 of those matches featured teams that both came through via penalties so just 3/15 countries who progressed via a penalty shootout won their next match. Doesn’t look good for Brazil or Costa Rica.

Interestingly teams that won through via a penalty shootout have not gone into extra time the following game as 16/19 were decided within 90 mins and  just 3 went to extra time. Contrast that with teams that won through in extra time and in 11 of those 13 matches went to extra time again and 8 of them went on to penalties.

Is there something physically draining about the penalty shootout? Mentally does it weigh on your mind in the next match? The 19 teams who went through via a penalty shootout scored just 11 goals in their next match, whereas the extra time winners scored 12 goals in 13 games.

 All the matches in full are shown below

Yesterdays results

None

4/22 :: -8.4

Todays bets
01.07.2014 – France v Germany – DRAW @ 3.23 with Pinnacle