Hold on, haven’t I posted that before? Has this happened before? Err… yes at the end of each Italian football season.
I’ve been tracking the matches for about ten years now and while many things in football are unpredictable, Italian football often isn’t so random.
Italian football, Bellissimo
As part of my preparation for the weekend’s football fixtures, I suck in all the matches via Bet Angel into a spreadsheet and a couple of pre-set formula’s point out areas of interest. Each year it throws up something odd around the last matches of the season in Italian football. Scan down the list and in the section of ‘dead-rubbers’ you will find a whole load of matches where a draw looks almost certain. It happens every year.
Slightly short odds
I can reel off ten years of similar scenarios but for just one example this evening look at Cesena vs Cremonese. The volume of matched bets on this one match is way above any other match on the same day and 88% of the volume is, unusually, on the draw. I can’t help but wonder what the result of this match will be? Cesena needs a point from this match to avoid any chance of relegation.
Finding value
As this is a regular occurrence, more and more people pick up on it now and it is it is possible to pick off matches that are likely to exhibit these characteristics in advnace. You could probably argue there is a case for some value betting going on given the prior year results. But obviously, if you identify these matches, there is an opportunity to get in at-large odds when the market opens or with bookmakers who are not wise to these scenarios.
Though you do wonder if you may get palped if that happens
Summary
The end of the season brings matters to a close on relegation and promotion. But unlike most major leagues, it seems that Italian football has a sense of pre-ordination about it.
Despite a couple of major match fixing scandals, it seems the soclal pressure of stopping somebody from achieving their aims overrules normality at the end of many Italian seasons. It will most likely repeat again this year.
