Help in handicapping european soccer

[jakeandba]

i am having a real tough time coming up with a metric or evaluation of series of metrics couple with math coming up with an over/under strategy.
Take for example, Manchester City vs Reading. This was a aFA cup Quarter finals.
City was playing at home where they have a great goal differ, Reading playing on the road should give up at least 2.
The final score was 1-0 City winning.
Truely believe money can be made with over/unders but i am at a loss on how to begin to look for this info to be used together, coming to an informed pick.
I am really struggling with ideas about coming up with a method to handicapp over/unders. Anyone give me some direction?

[gryfyn1]

stay away from these cup games -- teams approach them differently than a regular season game. Figuring out if and how much motivation a team will come to one of these games with if as important as figuring out how they will perform.

[jakeandba]

thanks gry...this has been the hardest sport to handicap. i started out with creating a goals for and goals against for the past 3 games. Tested this against a season and this failed.
Then created a model using stardard deviation for only goals scored from the previous week and that crashed and burned.

[latinrus]

stay away from these cup games -- teams approach them differently than a regular season game. Figuring out if and how much motivation a team will come to one of these games with if as important as figuring out how they will perform.

good advice!

U also have to know about the injuries of the team and if they have a midweek game for example in Champions League or Europa League (even if europa league is sh*t).

Knows a little about the lineups the teams may have.

[Dirty Sanchez]

I agree with gryfyn1 as many of the teams left in the Cup competitions also have Champions/Europa League games, as well as their regular league games to play. How teams put together lineups are really tricky because in some cases they send out a lineup to try and slip by so they can rest people etc. It's a virtual minefield trying to figure alot of this stuff out. Also, when betting the big clubs such as Man U, Real, Barca, etc. you're betting with the public and there are no bargains. You're paying for the honor of being on their side.

[gulash106]

My opinion is this... In any event that involves human interaction; You cannot use any system based on statistics. This is because by nature human involvement in such things as sports are completely unpredictable.

People have bad games, people have good games, an error occurs, and bad call resulting in a penalty... etc. etc. etc. There is a lot of factors, including luck, that one cannot account for, i.e., predict.

There are people making money on sports handicapping, but at the end of the day those are just guesses based on their own evaluations.

So my advice is to bet based on your own evaluations of the teams, and not based on any statistical data.

[steviec27]

I agree with all of what has been said here, regarding cup matches not being a true representation of a team as there are too many variables to consider such as concentrating on league instead, resting players etc.
Also as said by Sanchez if a team has played midweek and especially if they have had a long trip it can seriously affect a team. Especially defensively if a team had played/travelled midweek then this will catch up with them late in a game and can cause sloppy defensive play. No idea on the stats regarding however.
You mention the Man City match and the travel factor quite possibly affected the match today. City having been chasing the game on Thursday then had a long flight home from Ukraine getting home at 5am and this must affect the players, and in my opinion they looked uninterested going forward as a result, no urgency whatsoever.

Anyways what im getting at is that you need to factor in all the 'variables' when thinking about a game. Not just blindly saying for example..man u will hump wolves 5-0 its a definate over.
Personally I like to look at stats on goals scored and conceded at home and away, current form, injuries and occasionally past meetings as well as the things already mentioned.

BOL with it buddy


EDIT: Also I agree with gulash that there are too many events in the space of a game to affect it that statistics do not rule. If they did we would all be rich.

However there is no denying that trends occur due to a teams style of play.
For example, Blackpools philosophy of 'we will score one more than you' generally results in an over more often than not as they simply throw caution to the wind from the start and just try to score and dont defend much, so although they score a fair few, they concede a lot too when the game is so open.

[jakeandba]

hey all thanks for the input. This gives me a spot to start and hopefully create a successful model.