STRAIGHT: Chile ML -140, Chile vs Uruguay
STRAIGHT: Japan Women's ML -150, Japan vs Netherlands
1. Chile vs Uruguay
Chile is the host of the Copa America and have won every game except for an exciting 3-3 draw they did with Mexico. Uruguay is the defending Copa America champion (from back in 2011) but are missing the banned biter Luis Suarez. Going into this match, most people predicted that Chile would ultimately prevail probably by 1 goal although not completely writing off Uruguay, who not only is defending champion but has won the Copa America the most out of any other South American country. Uruguay has the ultimate reputation of being the party pooper. That said, this year they are severely weakened without Suarez and as evidenced by their lackluster form (1-0 against Jamaica, 1-1 against Paraguay, 0-1 against Argentina) it is clear that a lot of their creativity and firepower has been missing. To make matters worse for them, star striker Cavani (who becomes #1 most important player in Suarez's absence) just received news a few hours ago that his father was arrested in Uruguay for running over a 19 year old with his car. The coach has already said Cavani doesn't have to play, which is probably unlikely, but will surely be a major distraction as he didn't go to practice. On the other hand, Chile have been in good form and thrashed Bolivia 5-0 in their last outing. Chile has had its own controversy with THEIR star player Arturo Vidal getting arrested last week for a DUI and crashing his Ferrari. He has not been banned and is actually being supported by the coach and Chile's football federation but the bigger story is during the last game, the team appeared to do even better in spite of his controversy. Out of the 5 teams that were considered the potential favorites to win the Copa America (Brazil, Colombia, Argentina, Chile, and Uruguay), pretty much all have been underperforming including Chile, but I think all would agree that Chile has been the LEAST underperforming out of the 5, and at least play with the most heart compared to the others. The combination of Chile's better recent form, home crowd advantage (which has also meant zero travel for their team), as well as Uruguay being very lackluster lately plus their star striker now having a new major life distraction, I think this gives us more faith in a Chile victory. Predicted result: 1-0 or 2-1.
2. Japan vs Netherlands
The Women's WC is entering the knockout phase now. Japan, who was the 2011 FIFA Women's WC champion, takes on the Netherlands who is ranked outside top 10 and has made it the furthest it ever has for the women's team. It is generally agreed that the Netherlands team is lucky to be this far as their path to the knockout stage has been easy - they beat the ever shitty New Zealand team 1-0, then lost to China 0-1, then tied with Canada 1-1 to end up here. Quite different from a lot of other teams such as the US who had to play against Sweden, Australia, and Nigeria. Japan on the other hand won all 3 of its prior games against Switzerland, Cameroon, and Ecuador, albeit "only" by 1 point, but perhaps being shrewd in doing so by saving their energy for the knockout phase as many teams do as a general strategy for World Cup. Japan is typically known for its defense - so far there have only been 8 shots on target against them in all of their games. We saw the Netherlands lose to China 0-1 and the Chinese Women's team has sometimes been compared to as a slightly inferior version of the Japanese Women's team in that they focus mostly on defense and then scoring on counterattack opportunities when they can. But Japan is a stronger team than China and on this basis alone I would feel comfortable backing them against the Netherlands since we saw them struggle against China. All the analysts are also projecting a Japanese victory here. Predicted score 1-0 or 2-1.
STRAIGHT Barcelona -0.25, -120
STRAIGHT Over2.75, -120
1. Manchester United vs. FC Barcelona
Finally, the Meeting of the Giants as per San Jose Mercury. Picks: Barcelona -0.25 and Over2.75. A couple things to note – the International Champions Cup is essentially a series of FRIENDLY’s…therefore it is not taken very seriously. When ManU won the cup last year (by steamrolling Liverpool 3-1) coach Louis Van Gaal was asked afterward how he felt about winning the championship and he said verbatim: “nothing”. Barca coach was on record earlier saying he would have preferred “not to play” in the ICC since he wanted his players to rest ahead of the start of the domestic European leagues in August. Therefore the ICC literally means f all to these coaches, which is reflected in the lineups whereby Messi and Neymar as well as a host of other starters will be missing today.
ManU on the other hand has had a more of their starters available and while LVG clearly doesn’t want to overextend his players too much, he has stated this week his intention of playing his starting 11 for at least 60 minutes against Barca. As comparison for his last match against the Earthquakes for which ManU won 3-1, he switched nearly all 11 players at halftime. So it seems he is at least taking Barca seriously because well, it’s Barca and every team wants to turn up against the treble winning champions.
Barca comes off a 2-1 victory over LA Galaxy whereby Luis Suarez predictably scored first. In that game we saw a lot of the B squad playing. One positive thing was that Barca still largely dominated the field against Galaxy who is considerably better than the Earthquakes that ManU dominated. If coach Enrique lets Iniesta, Rakitic, Pique, and UEFA goalie ter Stergen play for a longer time, then this match should be pretty equal. I don’t see either team doing a blowout win and think a 2-2 draw is likely, therefore I am not doing a Barca moneyline bet, rather taking the Asian handicap at -0.25 as a safer alternative. If Barca wins, you still win, if there is a draw, then you will only lose half of your stake.
Finally, the total score line will be over 2.75 goals. Couple reasons – we’ve usually seen in club friendlies that the score will be high. ManU and Barca’s last 2 games averaged out to be 3.5. Because of the history between these 2 European teams, in which the last 2 meetings Barca notably won by knocking ManU out of the UEFA Champions League competition, combined with comments made by coach LVG and captain Wayne Rooney, we know that ManU will be hungry for goals today. On the flip side, with someone like Suarez on Barca you just can’t help but not be surprised if he turns the penetrate up, especially with his tendency to do so on big games, especially against teams like ManU whose fans notably despise Suarez, due either to his time at Liverpool or the fact that he singlehandedly knocked England out of the WC2014 with a brace AFTER getting penetrating knee surgery done. That’s the kind of penetrating beast Suarez is and if he has the support of arguably the best midfield today in Iniesta, Busquets, and Rakitic, along with support of Barca forward veteran Pedro, it becomes to make sense why even though ManU has their regular starting 11 that Barca is still ultimately favored to win this match according to the bookies. Therefore since I think both teams will actually care about this match today and will emphasize scoring, I think that the likeliest scores are 2-1 or 2-2 and therefore the over2.75 is the way to go.
Bonus: if the score ties, it will go to penalty kicks whereby if we have ter Stergen for Barca vs De Gea for ManU, I think Barca has the advantage. De Gea hasn’t actually played for ManU in awhile and of course recently has a lot of news about him going to Real Madrid which has been distracting to say the least and with the deal not finalized yet, coach LVG is now essentially forcing him to play in today’s match so we have to wonder how motivated he will truly be. See Sterling’s last shitty couple of matches at Liverpool where he scored absolutely nothing. And his first match playing for Manchester City in the ICC? Goal in the first 3 mins.
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