Bundesliga Tips For Tuesday

Three midweek games in the Bundesliga on Tuesday (and four on Wednesday), but I'm going to start off with one I don't have any interest in. All kick off at 7:00pm GMT, the first is on ESPN in the UK.


Hoffenheim v Bayern Munich
I mentioned a couple of weeks ago that I normally avoid any games that don't have a sufficient 'head to head' record but that as of yet I'm not sure what the minimum requirement ought to be. I've taken a tiny step further and I've now decided that although five games should probably be sufficient, two definitely aren't. There have only been two meetings between these two sides at Hoffenheim in the Bundesliga and both of them were draws. I'd leave Bayern alone anyway at the moment.

However, Mainz v Köln does meet the minimum requirement. In the last six games between these two at Mainz the hosts have not been beaten and although the current leaders have caught a lot of people by surprise, it's not hard to see why they're currently doing so well. In their last 20 Bundesliga home games they've only lost twice and they've kept clean sheets in half of them.


Having said that...there's no value backing Mainz but as they should be available at around evens then they're worth taking as it's always nice to effectively double your money. What I'm going to suggest is to back Under 2.5 goals as Köln might decide to park the bus: in their last 20 away games in the Bundesliga, they've failed to score 11 times, have kept ten clean sheets and one side has failed to score in 15 of those games.


Which is another way of saying 'Köln away: one of the teams isn't going to score'.


By way of a total contrast, Hannover v Werder Bremen will probably finish 6-5. These sides have met each other on several occasions and the big sample size (20 games) throws up some mad numbers:

* Fifteen of the last 20 games between these two have finished with more than 2.5 goals
* Thirteen of the last 20 have been over 3.5 goals
* There's only been a goalless draw once in the last 20
* Bremen's average margin of victory in their eight wins at Hannover is 2.5 goals.


So the recommendation is Over 2.5 goals and it might also be worth looking at the markets for both teams to score and laying 0-0. Once again although the bookies have correctly installed Werder Bremen as favourites, they don't represent any value; I'm also a little reluctant to get involved in such short prices for an away win.

I decided not to get involved with the New Orleans Saints v San Francisco 49ers game in the NFL, which was probably just as well. Looking back to the 2009 season, games featuring divisional runners up at home against divisional winners generated 12 wins for the runners up from 15 games and this looked like a good reason to back San Francisco.

Except New Orleans won with a last second field goal.

There are a couple of runners up v champions games this coming Sunday - Dallas at Houston and Indianapolis at Denver. As I've mentioned elsewhere, this is a huge game for Dallas but more about that game later in the week.