Big-Spending Spanish Teams
And still we wait.
Ronaldinho may be off to AC Milan leaving a Brazilian shaped gap for Barcelona to fill but there still seems to be a lull in the La Liga transfer activity.
The rumour mill has certainly been working overtime and you get the feeling that all it takes is one for big transfer to happen and then a lot of other moves will fall into place.
However, even though La Liga does not kick off until Saturday the 30th of August, 1 day before the window officially slams shut until January; a few clubs have their competitive campaign starting early and unsurprisingly, these clubs have made a few purchases so far.
My Journey to Professional Football-Betting
Observations and thoughts of a pre-professional football bettor with occassional comments by J Armstrong. Updated at least once weekly.
by Daniel Andersson
Date: 24 June 2008
MY EURO BETS THUS FAR
Hi J
So far it has been even win/loss for me so I think it isn't good enough but still it is my first big championship to bet on and I have picked up a couple of things.
First off the psychological aspects in these sorts of tournaments seem to be huge. For example, and the one thing that has stood out so far, let's take a look at the quarters.
In the quarter finals it was one team in every game that had rested a big amount of players the last group stage game since they already were through. Obviously this may seem like a plus against a team who had fight all the way to the finish line but that may not be the case.
Now I haven't looked at the previous years EC's or WC's but in this tournament three of the four teams who rested players got kicked out and if you look at both Portugal and Holland they didn't really have those last needed percentages and were a bit unfocused.
This is how I look at it. I think that a rest period of around a week in a short tournament, as the Euro's are, creates a small vacation which isn't benificial for the players focus. It may even cause a loss of the edge needed. The training sessions isn't that helpful either since it mostly is tactical work, recovery and some easy drills. So that doesn't help to keep the "edge".
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