De Graaf

Hello Punters, It has been a long time since my last post but I am back, hopefully with something good as I can honestly say this is my life's work. 
My previous posts have been about finding value in season bets for the Dutch Eredivisie. The quest for value in football bets has never been off my mind but I have been busy with other, more serious issues in my life. Currently life is (almost) back to normal and I am back on the road to Valuetown  
A little background on myself: I am a 41 year old software developer from Amsterdam with a passion for football and statistics. This last summer I have taken quite a lot of time to work on a model that spits out a number for home win, draw, away win and over/under 2.5 goals for the Premier League, Bundesliga, Primera Division and Eredivisie. The number being the estimated chance of the outcome occurring. And this number can be translated into a price. Sometimes this price, including a safety margin, can be found at one of the bookie websites. More often, it cannot. 
All I can say about the models is that I use statistical analysis and that a lot of time has gone into this project. I will not disclose any details regarding the models I have built and the way I have built them. I am by no means super intelligent but I am passionate about programming, statistics, football and gambling and I am willing to stick with a problem for a long time if I believe it is worth pursuing. The idea of building these models has been on my mind for years. I have read a lot of books, articles and studies on the subject. It is my dream to work on this full-time. 
A lot has been written on the concept of value in betting and for some reason a lot of people think this concept does not apply to football. I could not disagree more. Sure, if I were able to pick winners each and every time, I would not mind getting a price of 1,10 every time. But I am really bad at picking winners. I follow my models' recommendations which will often contain long-shots with bloated prices. And there is always a safety margin in place. When looking at the price of a bet a couple of concepts are important to consider.
Let's look at a fictitious match where the #1 of the Premier League plays at home against the #14. Would you take 1000-1 on the underdog? I would certainly hope that you would. If you could go all-in pre-flop in a Hold'em cash game with deuce seven against AA for a return of 20-1 you would definitely take it every time because 7-2 has almost 12% equity against AA pre-flop. Chances like these arise quite often in a football season. What if FC Barcelona won a 100% of their home games. Football would be very boring indeed.    
For the rest of the season I will be posting recommendations. Maybe, at the end of this season, I will have nothing to show for in which case no one will care about my models and methods anyway and I will be laughed off of this forum  Will I be able to live my dream? Time will tell.   
Until now, with only 12 weeks of live testing I have made a rate of return of 32,12%. This is even less than expected but very hopeful. Some weeks the return is negative and other weeks the return is a huge plus. Short term results will vary hugely but the long term results will reflect the value of the system. You can lose AA vs KK in Texas Hold'em 4 times in a row but you will always take the AA because in the long run you will win.  
There is always variance, ready to kick someone's behind or to hand out presents so short term results don't say very much either way. I realize full well that spitting out a percentage on this forum doesn't mean anything. I could be making it up or exaggerate. You should of course not take my word. 
At the end of this season the final rate of return will show where my models roughly stand. I have tested them against historical data so I know which result I would like to see in the end.  
In the coming months I will be posting my recommendations, probably around every Wednesday. The Dutch and German leagues still have 14 and 16 rounds to play this season, 15 rounds for the Premier League and 17 for the Primera Division. I will probably have between 10 and 15 picks per round resulting in approximately 170 picks until the end of the season. Also I will post the results for the previous round and the overall rate of return. For the overall rate of return I will start at 0 again, needless to say. 
I am very excited and I hope that I have created something valuable, not only for some extra cash but also for the sport of it! The proof of the punting is in the eating! Game on!  
Greetings, 
Noneckdude 
 
PS I want to thank football-data.co.uk for their free data and their fantastic articles 
 
 

Champions League Gent - Zenit St Petersburg

Zenit have finally fulfilled their potential in the Champions League and have already secured first place in the group, it has come at a cost domestically and it is no coincidence that the Premier Liga form of both Zenit and CSKA, the two CL teams, has nosedived in recent weeks, anyway, that can wait for another day. Their domestic campaign doesn't restart until March and they need to rest now and come back early to try and get into some sort of match shape for the first round of knockout games in mid February, that process has already started and several players including Hulk (who has already been allowed to return to Brazil) have not made the trip. Head coach Andre Villas-Boas has been open about his thinking and said on the club website earlier this week " In this situation, we have to decide what is more important , this match or the last 16, we should not forget about the dream of the quarter-finals, so we need to be a little more pragmatic." He then went on to give us the all too familiar football talk about "doing our best in every game and loooking for the win", but I think the first comments were the most telling and pertinent.

Gent have already taken four points from home games with Valencia and Lyon and took Zenit closer in St Petersburg than those two and would secure progression today with three points, or if Valencia failed to beat Lyon, but the Spanish club have a new coach to impress and I expect them to win on his official home debut and I am close to certain that Gent will need a maximum return here to progress. Hulk has contributed (goals/assists) to 7 of Zenit's 12 goals in the competition and they obviously lose a lot of offensive threat in his absence, centre back Nicolas Lombaerts started his professional career at Gent and went to University in the city and has spoken about returning to play for the club one day and conspiracy theorists could have a field day if he scores an own goal or makes a couple of errors !

Gent -0.5 ball 2.26 asian line/Sportmarket

 

Leicester City- Aston Villa City have been proving fun to watch, they have yet to keep a cleansheet, or taste defeat, scoring 12 goals themselves , Villa are struggling defensively, conceding 11 in their last four EPL away starts, that includes a 1-0 win at Bournemouth, where they should have conceded at least twice, they also shipped three at home to League 2 Notts County in the Capital One Cup and two at Villa Park to Sunderland and Tim Sherwood has a big ask sorting out his backline. He is a very offensive minded coach anyway and always wants to play on the front foot, it was always going to be tough to replace Christian Benteke, but his team have been creating chances and pose a big aerial threat especially through Rudi Gestede and the crosses of left-back Jordan Amavi and the same is also true of the Foxes who have scored a EPL high three headed goals and Villa showed a weak spot in defending crosses/corners versus Crystal Palace. Therefore, we can surely look for both to be getting the ball into the box at every opportunity and as quickly as possible and neither team looks likely to keep a clean sheet. I can actually see improvement in Villa and when Amavi and Leandro Bacuna do not go quite so gung-ho on the flanks , or get protection, they will look more solid and Sherwood is looking to address this with a change in formation ( but been unable to work on it over the break, with key players away on international duty) and whilst I see the visitors having more than a 20% (5.0) chance of winning this, they are another team who will probably be stronger in 3-4 weeks time. For today, I suspect they will need to score at least once and probably twice to get something out of this, both to score looks solid, but 1.80 is way too short for me, so ..... over 2.75 goals 2.19 asian line/Sportmarket will be my pick and a 2-2 draw my suggestion for any adventurous minded readers.

Bulgaria-Norway We sit 4th with 8 points and desperate to win the game but the question is can we actually outscore Norway?I think if it was a few years ago when Berbatov,Martin Petrov,Stan were in the team we would've been heavy favourites to win but today in my opinion we lack both football and mental skills,we are just not used to winning big and decisive games.Bojinov is the only player who has played in a big European team and he won'be available although i doubt he could make a difference.Stoyanov(GK,Ludogorets)is injured and was replaced by Mekendjiev(Beroe)but Mihaylov(Mersin)is the 1st choice anyway so no big deal here.Gadzhev(CM) is a free agent so he wasn't call for the game which means that Chochev(CM,Palermo) will start together with Dyakov(Ludogorets) who's the engine of the team and will never stop running but that's all-he has no other skills.We will once again be without Ivanov(CB,Basel) who has long-term injury and won't feature in both qualifications this month.Upfront the attack is lead by Popov(Spartak Moscow) who is well respected in Russia but is yet to show his best playing for the national team.We have Tonev(Frosinone) who was playing for Villa and loaned to Celtic but ended up sold to Frosinone due to racist scandal in Scotland.Let's see...Georgi Milanov(CSKA Moscow) could help upfront although i am not convinced he has what it takes to be a regular starter.I like Galabinov(CF,Novara) but Petev didn't call him for the game.Kolev(CF,Botev) is a newcomer but he cannot decide our problems in attack,he rarely scores goals in our local championship and i cannot see him doing any better on Euro stage.Overall,the people around here expect nothing from them despite the talking from Petev that we will attack from the very beginning.We have been woeful so far and Norway already defeated us in Oslo in what was a close affair.I think we might try to control the tempo,it's just what Petev's teams try to do but i really cannot see how we''ll be finishing our attacks.I've watched Norway on one occasion and it was when they defeated us 2:1 and i can say that they are no great shakes either and maybe the home factor prevailed in that game.After that they got battered in Croatia and drew at home to Azerbaijan which is far from a great accomplishment so it seems they are having problems upfront too.I really expect a draw here because both teams are lacking sharpness and while Norway might be happy with a point,a draw leaves us out of Euro 2016.Both teams are on pressure given their recent results and performances and knowing how much is in stake here both camps may cancel each other out with a low scoring draw.Draw @ 3.40 with bet365 would be my call.

Copa America: Chile- Bolivia We have spoken already this week about how close almost every match at the Copa America has been , eight matches have been decided by a single goal, three have been draws and there has been a single two goal win and even that should have been a closer result. It is hard to see that suddenly changing in this game with so much at stake and with the better and home team mindful of much bigger games ahead, a long tournament and able to get what they desire from the game without "wasting" too much energy. A win would see Chile top the group, but a point would be enough , unless Mexico record at least a two goal win. Bolivia have the same criteria more or less, they will win the group with all three points, but probably know that is beyond them, a point would ensure second and mean avoiding Argentina in the last eight , also, with four points in the bag, a one goal defeat would mean they would look solid for one of the two third places and that is their fail safe and means if they do fall behind, they will be keen not to concede a second and there would be no reason for Chile to push for it either. Bolivia +1.25 ball 2.20 asian line/Sportmarket. Incredibly, this match is played after the Mex-Ec ( see below) so the situation could change if one of the teams in the earlier game won big, but I am happy with the handicap start regardless.

Italy v Sweden The Azzurri are the only squad at the 2015 finals with not a single player capped at senior level, but they are the most successful nation in the history of the competition, with five Championships won (In the 2013 U-21 Championship Italy lost the final against Spain). Strikers A. Belloti (Palermo, 6 goals in Serie A and 6 goals for NT in qualification) and D. Berardi (Sassuolo, 15 goals in Seria A last season) are their key players and are expected to continue this year's series of goals. Given that the next opponents are England and Portugal, Marco di Biagi will try with offensive tactics and formation 4-3-3 to win the three points tonight. Otherwise, they've reached 23 goals in 10 qualifying games and won 7:0 against Inter's youth side last Friday in their final warm-up game. Sweden have the highest number of players with senior caps in their squad at this tournament (12) and they scored as many as 24 goals in 10 qualifying games and have no defeat in six friendly matches. Their greatest weapon will be the duo of strikers who both offer very different styles of play. They are I. Thelin (big, strong and technical) who moved to Bordeaux this year and J. Guidetti (quick, nippy and hits the channels) who will be highly motivated because many scouts following him after the excellent season in Celtic (was on loan from Man City). However, right back E. Krafth is injured, while key centre back (and vice-captain) A. Milosevic played 90 minutes for Sweden's senior team in the 3:1 qualifying win against Montenegro on 14 June. The most recent competitive encounter beetween these two was in the 2013 qualifying play-offs, Italy won with overall score 4:2 and Scandinavians want revenge now as they are outsiders in the group. So they will be motivated and without pressure, but the Italians are better quality team and should play offensively, in any case - both sides have very promising strikers and not very strong defense. Goals for me. over 2,5 $1.81 Pinnacle medium stake over 2,5 & bts $2.40 local bookie low sake prediction>> Italy 2:2 Sweden