2018 World Cup Ante-Post Chat

[StevieDay1983]

The 2018 World Cup is now drawing ever close with the opening game between hosts Russia and underdogs Saudi Arabia scheduled to take place on Thursday 14th June at 4pm BST. Brazil have moved to being the favourite with the bookies. Germany, Spain, and France are not far behind. There are also the dark horses in the shape of Argentina, Belgium, England, Portugal, Croatia, and Uruguay.

What bets will you guys be placing ahead of the start of the tournament?

[Sir Puntalot]

How the hell England can only be 16/1 is beyond me. It's my country and I love it, but we may as well be 50/1 or more!  

The future could be different for England, but these players just simply aren't world class at the moment. France look very tasty at present.

[matt-e-matticle]

Iceland at 200 look stand out long shots to me.

Ordinarily I'd agree England are over hyped and of little value, but I have a feeling they'll surprise a little this time around.  Not saying they will win it, but reckon they could reach a QF with some luck.  With a number of England's players playing under the genius of Pep I reckon that could have a flow effect both in terms of football IQ and confidence.  Doesn't hurt that possibly Europe's number 1 goalscorer also leads the line.    

[Mindfulness]

Guys I have been really boring with my first 2 selections but I feel World Cup betting is so random and treacherous you should back teams that are generally consistent at international level:

 

Germany to win the world cup @ 6.0 Unibet

Some would argue the team has improved from 2014 and I would say the likes of Leroy Sane and Timo Werner will bring that added pace and movement. Pace and movement with runners going beyond tends to bring the best out of Ozil and generally speaking I think Germany will be strong contenders to lift the trophy once again. Question marks over Jonas Hector at LB but overall I am satisfied this team has the quality, cohesion and experience to win.

 

Spain to win the world cup @ 7.6 Betfair (Exchange)

It might not be the Spain of old but the squad is strong throughout and coach Lopetegui should know how to get the best out of Isco and Asensio through his work with the U21 setup. It should also be noted that some of Spain's more talented players have not been playing 90 minutes week in, week out for their clubs this season so fatigue should not be a factor for them. This is also a major reason why I never like to back England in summer tournaments as everyone's knackered after 30 minutes. The big question mark for Spain this summer will be over the cohesion of the side - I don't think they're on Germany's level in that regard. However, a balanced squad combined with great blend of youth, experience and quality should mean Spain are contenders once again this year.

 

Will post again if I can find further selections.
 

[Trotter]

Blimey ....... on the first Saturday there are 4 games one after the other starting at 11AM

Better go into training ...........

[harry_rag]

I always like to back a few "out there" specials for the major tournaments and I've been working my way through the shed loads of offerings from 888, ending up with the following. These probably represent no more than a third of the ones I shortlisted and I rejected dozens more on the basis of obvious rank bad value or impossible to gauge. Feel free to state  or  against any of these but it gives me a decent interest throughout the tournament even if I'm wrong about the price offering genuine value. Bear in mind there are 64 games in the tournament and 16 knock out ties, e.g. 50/1 for the whole tournament equates to better than 3000/1 for each individual game.

20 points on any goalkeeper to give an assist at 11/2
10 points on the Golden Boot winner to miss a penalty (including during a shootout) at 9/1
8 points on any team to win at least 2 penalty shootouts at 14/1
5 points on the record for latest goal from kick off being broken (121 minutes) at 30/1
3 points on a goal being scored direct from a corner kick at 50/1
3 points on tournament progress in any group to be decided via fair play points or drawing of lots at 50/1
1 point on any player to score from their own penalty box at 500/1

[StevieDay1983]

Yeah. I always pick one underdog for a bet. My mate's wife is Peruvian so I've promised him I'll back them in the absence of Wales. Fancy them to potentially reach the quarters with a bit of luck.

[waynecoyne]

Gabriel jesus top scorer and brazil winners double is 50/1 with b365 which looks good value

especially with doubts about neymar's fitness (out since feb and has been back training for a week).

[harry_rag]

Having completed my trawl of the "novelty specials" for the tournament, I've added these with Paddy.

50 points on 2 or more hat tricks scored (including ET) at 6/4
16 points on Ronaldo to score a direct free kick at 9/2
12 points on Eriksen to score a direct free kick at 6/1
5 points on 30+ goals scored from outside the box at 14/1
2 points on any player to score from inside their own half at 50/1

Will have to sit there with a list of all these bets to refer to, to make sure I get the best value out of them when watching the games! Will have a look at the more traditional markets and do some study for goalscorer betting, which is the main area of interest for me.

[StevieDay1983]

On 5/30/2018 at 4:41 PM, waynecoyne said:

Gabriel jesus top scorer and brazil winners double is 50/1 with b365 which looks good value

especially with doubts about neymar's fitness (out since feb and has been back training for a week).

That's a big call! Fair shout on the Neymar front but even if Gabriel Jesus plays will he fit into the team mould? He scored 5 goals in his first 6 international matches during 2016 but has only scored 4 goals over the past 2 years. Personally, I rate him but think he needs regular football to be at his best... and I'm not sure he's had enough football this season.

[waynecoyne]

was trying to look beyond the obvious stevie

I think he has 7 in 10 in the qualifiers

[Mindfulness]

France to win the world cup @ 7.8 Matchbook

This will be my final selection in the winners category aside from possible hedging later on in the tourney.

On paper, France have the best squad in this years world cup but there have been question marks over the cohesion of the team and Deschamps ability to select the right players / system.

Looking at the team from last nights 3-1 victory over a young Italy side we can see that Dembele is back with a vengeance and Mendy is also managing to get some game time. There are still some doubts over Sidibe's fitness at RB but for me the 4-3-3 they played looks more balanced with round pegs in round holes.

France have the best squad, if they start to play with confidence and cohesion they could prove to be a formidable force. A price near 8.0 is too tempting for me to ignore.

[harry_rag]

Out of curiosity and nostalgia, I picked up some coupons from my local Hills. One bet that caught my eye was 5/6 for yes or no on England getting 19 or more corners in the group stage. Although not my typical price to bet at, I did think that 5/6 was a big price for England to get at least 19 corners. They are quite prolific in that regard and the totals for the last Euros and WC were 26 and 22.

Any views on that one?

[BillyHills]

Out of the first 35 entries in our World Cup competition we have the following bankers tipped by all 35 players

 

Bankers so far:

France to beat Australia 2/11
Germany to beat Mexico 4/9
Brazil to beat Switzerland 2/5
Spain to beat Iran 2/11
Brazil to beat Costa Rica 2/9
England to beat Panama 1/5
Spain to beat Morocco 4/11
Germany to beat South Korea 2/7

Acca pays 6/1 @ bet365

 

Enter here;
 

 

[allyhibs]

I think there's money to be made betting against Argentina, they're far too short at 10.00. Scraped through qualification after being the lowest scorers out of the top 6 teams, recently hammered by Spain. Even Messi can't carry this team on his own.

[markus808]

11 hours ago, allyhibs said:

I think there's money to be made betting against Argentina, they're far too short at 10.00. Scraped through qualification after being the lowest scorers out of the top 6 teams, recently hammered by Spain. Even Messi can't carry this team on his own.

Thanks, I'm looking for big teams to lay. Argentina, I think, is one of them. Others are England and Brazil, there's lot of money being made on them, always over-rated never supsiring with good performances. But not sure if I will start betting against them in group stages, need to see at elast one game before. 

 

[Mindfulness]

http://www.skysports.com/football/news/12023/11394394/leroy-sane-left-out-of-germany-world-cup-squad

[waynecoyne]

3 minutes ago, Mindfulness said:

http://www.skysports.com/football/news/12023/11394394/leroy-sane-left-out-of-germany-world-cup-squad

that is nuts 

[StevieDay1983]

5 minutes ago, Mindfulness said:

http://www.skysports.com/football/news/12023/11394394/leroy-sane-left-out-of-germany-world-cup-squad

That's unbelievable. Must be something on a personal or attitude level. I can't imagine he's been dropped purely on ability. Or maybe Joachim Low is just sticking with the players that have served him well previously? Still, not the option the majority of football fans would have picked but Low is a World Cup winning manager so we'd be naive to criticise his decision without knowing more.

[markus808]

3 hours ago, Mindfulness said:

http://www.skysports.com/football/news/12023/11394394/leroy-sane-left-out-of-germany-world-cup-squad

I think this shows the strength of the German team and the balls of Löw. In the end I think the team which is mentally strongest will win. That's why I don't rate teams like Brazil and Belgium, today's football is really different than it was 15 years ago. 
Also, I thought it could be a form of decimation (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decimation_(Roman_army) and disciplining other would-be-stars. Ability wise I'm not so familiar with German team, but my bet is he would be in any other team competing in WC. 

Edited June 4, 2018 by markus808

[waynecoyne]

16 minutes ago, markus808 said:

I think this shows the strength of the German team and the balls of Löw. In the end I think the team which is mentally strongest will win. That's why I don't rate teams like Brazil and Belgium, today's football is really different than it was 15 years ago. 
Also, I thought it could be a form of decimation (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decimation_(Roman_army) and disciplining other would-be-stars. Ability wise I'm not so familiar with German team, but my bet is he would be in any other team competing in WC. 

i think it is an error as he gives the team something different-pace and unpredictability

this would put me off backing germany (not that i was going to anyway)

[markus808]

On 02/03/2018 at 10:22 PM, Sir Puntalot said:

How the hell England can only be 16/1 is beyond me. It's my country and I love it, but we may as well be 50/1 or more!  

The future could be different for England, but these players just simply aren't world class at the moment. France look very tasty at present.

Do you have any idea how to monetize that difference? I'm always betting against England after group stages, but do you think they could mess up even before?

[Sir Puntalot]

@markus808 I've given up betting for or against England!

They looked good against Nigeria, but as soon as we conceded it was same old story. Wouldn't surprise me if we beat Belgium to be honest, because there's so many EPL players in there, it won't feel like a match against say Spain, Germany, France, Argies, Brazil, all these teams will beat us unless we improve massively.

[StevieDay1983]

18 hours ago, Sir Puntalot said:

@markus808 I've given up betting for or against England!

They looked good against Nigeria, but as soon as we conceded it was same old story. Wouldn't surprise me if we beat Belgium to be honest, because there's so many EPL players in there, it won't feel like a match against say Spain, Germany, France, Argies, Brazil, all these teams will beat us unless we improve massively.

If Wales can beat that Belgium squad then England can! Keep the faith! They're cracking individuals but not a better team of players than England.

Touching on Sane again, Low apparently said he based his selection on player performances over recent games at international level, not club level. A logical decision. Reminds me of England snubbing the likes of Robbie Fowler, Matt Le Tissier, and Andy Cole back in the day. I still think it's a big call and he's an "X factor" player that can win games on his own but, as I said above, it would be naive to criticise the decisions of a manager that has led his team to fantastic performances at so many international tournaments. Just to summarise, this is how Germany have done under Low...

Euro 2008: Lost 1-0 to Spain in the Final

2010 World Cup: Lost 1-0 to Spain in Semi-Final

Euro 2012: Lost 2-1 to Italy in the Final

2014 World Cup: Winners

Euro 2016: Lost 2-0 to France in Semi-Final

[Tiffy]

On 03/06/2018 at 3:57 PM, harry_rag said:

Out of curiosity and nostalgia, I picked up some coupons from my local Hills. One bet that caught my eye was 5/6 for yes or no on England getting 19 or more corners in the group stage. Although not my typical price to bet at, I did think that 5/6 was a big price for England to get at least 19 corners. They are quite prolific in that regard and the totals for the last Euros and WC were 26 and 22.

Any views on that one?

I like the look of that one @harry_rag

 

[harry_rag]

Cheers, not had chance to get on it yet but should do today so will see if it's still available.

[harry_rag]

@Tiffy and anyone else who likes a spread bet, Spreadex have gone up with a selection of player tournament goal minutes and there's one or two players who look over or undervalued relative to their position in the golden boot market. For instance, Kane gets the highest quote of all (possibly anticipating weight of money from patriotic/mug punters) over both Messi and Neymar who are a few points shorter than him in the GB market.

Toni Kroos's quote seems the most flattering, being higher than Coutinho who is only a third of Kroos's price for GB.

Still working through to see if there's any bets that appeal but its worth a look.

[waynecoyne]

most seem suspended harry - but..

kroos doesn't score many I think and I wouldn't take the 59 to buy ,

mane at 54 looks better to me

[harry_rag]

Yeah, plenty more to follow evidently but 33 prices enough to be going on with!

Kroos a sell if you like value odds on bets but too much worst case scenario downside for me.

Muller the standout for me, have bought at 78. Also bought Japan's Yoshida at 8. Seems to score a few from set pieces, he's 6 feet 2 and a cheap buy across 3 games at that price.

[sajtion]

i don't see many great players in this world cup but i have a feeling this will be neymar versus messi world up. they are the players who can win matches for their countries single handedly and with the experience behind them it's easy to see brazil vs argentina going all the way to the final.