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| Kevin Pullein
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| Friday March 23,
2007 |
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It does not pay to expect a torrent
of goals when a top international side faces a minnow at home or away
In international football there is a difference between an easy win
and a big score. It is something of which you should be aware if you bet on any
of the apparent mis-matches scheduled for the next two rounds of European
Championship qualifying games. Among several others England's Group E fixture
next Wednesday, away to Andorra, stands out.
In games where one country
is vastly superior to the other most people anticipate a huge margin of
victory. The most common score is just 2-0. |
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The best way to illustrate this is with
figures showing what happens when the strongest countries in Europe play the
weakest. The eight highest-placed European countries in the Fifa rankings are
Italy, France, Germany, England, Holland, Portugal, Czech Republic and Spain.
The eight lowest are San Marino, Faroe Islands, Luxembourg, Andorra,
Liechtenstein, Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan and Armenia.
In qualifiers for
the last six major tournaments - from the 1998 World Cup up to and including
the 2008 European Championship - there have been 63 meetings between those
giants and those minnows. The giants beat the minnows 60 times and drew three
times. The most common score, though, was 2-0 (which occurred in 20% of games),
followed by 3-0 (13%) and 4-0 (also 13%). It may be that the best teams are
sometimes content to play out time once they feel victory has been assured. You
do not get more points for scoring more goals.
It is true that England
beat Andorra 5-0 at Old Trafford in September but for them, as for other
leading European countries, such a big score is an exception rather than the
rule. In World Cup 2002 qualifiers England beat Albania by two goals at home
and by two goals away. In Euro 2004 qualifiers they beat Liechtenstein 2-0 at
home and away. In World Cup 2006 qualifi ers they beat Azerbaijan 2-0 at home
and 1-0 away.
Ten years ago one could get odds of up to 18-1 about a
2-0 victory for a very good country against a very bad one. Nowadays you will
be lucky to get much more than 6-1. It is still the small scores, however,
which represent the biggest-value bets.
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