...And Then There Were Two

The World Cup Final on Sunday will be played between the Netherlands and Spain, which is what I was expecting...although I decided not to invest in that opportunity as I've been ignoring one of my golden rules, which is not to get involved in individual cup games. Tournaments - and tournaments from the quarter finals onwards in particular - are another matter. I'll have an official opinion before the game takes place ;-)

There are a couple of games in Scandinavia on Saturday that might be worth a look including two potentially profitable trading opportunities. In the Superettan (the second tier of Swedish football) Ljungskile take on Osters on Saturday afternoon. Ljungskile haven't lost at home this season and have only conceded two goals in seven games at home - and both of those were in the second half. Newly promoted Osters are struggling to find their feet: they've lost their last three games without scoring a goal. I'm going to take the Ljungskile win and would tentatively recommend under 2.5 goals, based on the excellent defensive record of the home side and Osters' lack of firepower.

The trading opportunities are games in neighbouring Norway.

410 miles east of Ljungskile, Haugesund play SK Brann in the Norwegian Tippeligaen. Haugesund were promoted to the top level of Norwegian football last season after a decade outside it and have made a really impressive start to the season at home. In fact they haven't lost at home since 28th June 2009 - a seventeen game unbeaten run in the league - which is a good indication of how good they are; at home they've continued the form that won them promotion. Opponents Brann are not doing so well - one win in seven away games (at relegation threatened Kongsvinger last Sunday) but have a good historical record against Haugesund, even though they last travelled to western Norway in July 2000!

I definitely think there's some value in backing Haugesund pre-match. The odds compilers - rightly - have factored in Haugesund's long absence from the top division into their prices so what we're looking at now is how likely it is that Haugesund might take the lead. The good news is that they tend to score early - an average of 14 minutes but with 60% of their goals coming in the first five minutes - and so the sequence of events we really want is that we back Haugesund before kick off, hope they score early and then close the trade. Or if you're me, think that the game is going to be walk in the park for the team that scores first and then get annoyed when the underdogs equalize ;-)

The other game is less clear despite being an automatic as far as my system is concerned. There's no doubt that Aalesund are a difficult team to beat at their Color Line Stadium and their opponents this weekend (Molde) have lost nine of their last 13 away league games. My numbers suggest that there's about a 75% chance of Molde not winning, but Aalesund have a poor record when Molde come to town so it's worth trying to think outside the box. A potential angle is the half time score - Aalesund haven't trailed at home after the first half this season and Molde haven't won away yet. So it might be worth looking at laying Molde at half time - currently 4.4 on Betfair, but very underexposed at the moment.

The other markets that might be worth looking at in this game is Over 2.5 goals (53% of all Tippeligaen games so far this season have been over 2.5) and laying 0-0. In Aalesund's last 20 league homes and Molde's last 20 league aways there have been no 0-0 draws - which could either be an opportunity or a very large and expensive trap - and very few clean sheets.

Right, I'm off to get stuck into some of those markets and I'll probably be back at some point on Saturday. I've also been working on my predictions for the major European leagues and the NFL recently and I'll definitely get those posted before the end of the month.

Update, Friday afternoon: Sporting Index' goal expectation for Aalesund v Molde is 3.2 and Haugesund are better than even favourites to score first.