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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: 18 February 2008

Other People's Opinions

I mentioned 'previous game motivation' last time and actually have another great example of that. It was Man U in the FA cup against Arsenal. Man U took a beating against Man C the game before and obviously felt they had to put things in order in their coming game.

Other than that, this game was fairly even with both teams resting people for CL and a couple of injuries. On that basis, Man U stood stronger with more quallified bench players. This added motivation from the loss to Man C was the thing that really tipped the scale in this game, in my opinion. I didn't bet on this game for some reason. It may have been because I have had some trouble betting on even games and derbies. I have basically avoided them even when there was a good bet there, that is something I will have to take care of.

I had Man U as a very possible bet. Oh, and Sevilla is also a team with previous game motivation. Having just lost a lead to Barca at the end of the game, feeling they deserved better.

Another thing I clearly noticed this weekend, on Saturday, was that I have a tendency to listen to other people's opinions and putting to much credibility in them. For instance, I read a preview of Juve - Roma and the writer predicted a high scoring game. Before this I had just thought of betting on Juve, because of motivational reasons and distractions of CL for Roma, but then changed that to a over bet. I basically found reasons to bet over just because I read that. So I guess the lesson for me here is to trust my own judgement.

I already mentioned the big miss on Saturday but I made two more bets. It was Inter -1.5 and Betis - R Madrid under 2.5.

Inter is much stronger than Livorno and with Livorno's star striker missing, the game they will not create much danger for the strongest defence in Serie A. Inter have a CL fixture coming up but they are resting a few key players which will give some bench players a chance to show what they can. These players will come in with great motivation and they are still not far off in quality compared to the starters. On top of that Livorno managed to draw against Milan in Milano. The probabilities of doing that two games in a row is very small and they know that which will somewhat of a psychological block.

The Under bet was still a good bet in my opinion even though it didn't go as thought. Betis won, 2-1, and that was somewhat that I expected. I thought it would be a very closed-off game with a one goal win or a 1-1 draw. This was because Real just won 7-0 against Valladolid and in a few days a important CL game. And they are also leading the league with quite a few points. So this game was less important to them. Betis on the other hand will be very motivated to face the capital giants. They have a good track record against them. In their last game they lost and let in three goals. This will make them a bit more careful in defence.

I think I will avoid Over/Under for bets a while. Just so I can refine the methods I use. Even though a short term loss isn't proof, I think tactical formations is very important here and I haven't really taken that in consideration with these bets.

Sunday wasn't that successful either. I made three bets. A Madrid -0.75, Fiorentina -1.25 and Mallorca (away) +0.25.

The first two didn't have any specific things really it was mostly class, form, homefield advantage and motivation (in this case for the Euro Cup places) that decided. Mallorca have a fitting playing style away to Valladolid. A technical fast counter against a team that really tries to play above their ability with very high pressure and a moveable passing style attack.

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