An ok day yesterday, Belgium finally prevailed when Hazard really woke up for the last 20 minutes. Algeria as I really fancied turned S Korea over and what a fast start that was, turned out to be a really entertaining game of football. I fell asleep for the Portugal v USA match with it 1-0 to Portugal, clearly the last half hour was exciting with Portugal grasping a lifeline with an injury time equaliser. Ben a great World Cup so far and now we come to the stage where some teams have it all to do and play for, and others are fannying around in dead rubbers like England!
So this week we have the games played simultaneously so that FIFA has the air of full transparency and one result is not known before the other game is played. FIFA, full transparency, ha ha, I bet my mate I could get that in a sentence on the blog and sound serious!
The first games today are at 5PM and see a dead game between Spain and Australia, both already eliminated so I won’t even bother with it. The other game in that group looks great though as Holland battle Chile for top spot and potentially an easier route in the knock out stages.
Rumours are Chile go full strength, whereas Van Gaal is trusting his squad to still get the job done and making a few changes. Of course we won’t know for sure until 4PM.
The bookies cannot split them, Betfair cannot split them and I all be honest I cannot split them! the draw favours Holland but they surely won’t play for it so it is tricky one to call seeing how Chile have played so far.
That rules out any bets in the match odds so as a betting medium it is not a great attraction. I am going to have small plays on 0-2 and 2-0 both at 17 and see if I can get a small race from either.
The second round of games sees Brazil under pressure to give Cameroon a good thumping to be honest. Brazil will almost certainly go through but it has not been a dominant display in the first two games. Fortunate against Croatia to have 12 on the pitch that day, one with a whistle, and then fully tested against what looks like a decent Mexico side.
Cameroon are just useless and have now been fighting amongst themselves. I was hoping to lay Brazil at 1.17 for limited liability and trade a bit later but I am not sure Cameroon can hold out for any length of time to make it viable. With Cameroon so poor there really are no prices of interest for anything.
So just for fun I will go Spursy and back Paulinho to score first at 12 with one of his surges into the box for tiny money.
Croatia v Mexico is much more interesting as a contest. Mexico only need a point and are yet to concede. Croatia bounced back from the disappointment of a costly decision against Brazil to thrash Cameroon 4-0. Mexico are yet to concede and their recent games have featured few goals. Croatia have to score or they are gone plain and simple.
I think this will be a cracker and will have few small interests.
I will back Croatia/Draw in the HT/FT market at 18.
I will back the draw at 3.5
I will also have small plays 1-0 and 0-1 at 9.4 each respectively
4 Responses
I disagree with your decision to ignore the Australia/Spain game. Although it is meaningless in regards to the tournament I think Australia will be up for this one, and will sense that Spain are there for the taking, even without Cahil I think Australia will have a real go. Spain look deflated and an early Australian goal could see an interesting result and at 1.48 I think Spain are worth Laying.
Chile v Holland one thing for sure I smell goals I’ll be backing the over 3.5 goals and looking to trade out in-play after the 2nd goal.
So far Brazil have been unconvincing but I keep thinking that they will eventually spring into life, to be honest I don’t think they have been playing well as a team too many players are trying to win the matches on their own, if they start to play as a unit they might turn the corner. Cameroon have been a disgrace, and more concerned about filling their pockets with cash than filling their opponents net with goals. As far as trading goes laying the over 2.5 goal market looks good for me, and as long as Cameroon can hold of 10 minutes without conceding there will be some nice profit to trade out.
Croatia v Mexico I think I will be laying the draw and looking to trade out it will be a tight game but both teams will want to win this one.
By the way you lost the bet cause no one could say that about Fifa and not be on some kind of hallucination drug and if I thought you were being serious I would want a doctor to test your Urine.
Hi Ian, Will you be advising any lay offs on your outright winner selections. Thanks
Yes Anthony when the teams involved are due to play the knockout matches, i.e I will wait to see what price Chile are in that game on the day and do something then