Archives 2021

For starters, the home field factor is more than in other sports. Playing at home always presupposes an important advantage, and this will be reflected in the odds of the game. Sometimes, given the high standard of the away team, the odds on the associated win can still be very low, but the closer games where the theoretical favourite is playing away from home offer an excellent opportunity to bet in their favour and get a quote in excess of 1.50 euros for every euro wagered.

You will spend most of your time betting on score-related markets, rather than on either team winning, as betting on the favourite pays poorly, as well as being no guarantee of success.

If you bet on the NFL without having carefully studied all the necessary data before the game, it is quite possible that your prediction will be wrong. To avoid this, keep track of the results and statistics of previous games. And also the previous meetings between the two teams.

Be well informed before you bet

Like almost all sports, the NFL is a sport and competition where numbers rule, so you should familiarise yourself with both individual player and team statistics.

Other elements to take into account when it comes to our predictions have to do with the immediate context surrounding each game, such as the fact that the players have had little rest between games, that the team is on a bad run, that there are injuries and all those kinds of factors that you can find out about if you keep an eye on the NFL news.

Don’t forget that if you stay out of the sporting news, it will be very difficult for you to make a reliable calculation of your odds with respect to the odds offered by the bookmaker. Your NFL betting predictions today could be very different from tomorrow’s if there is a last minute injury to the team, or if there is a situation outside of the sport that could affect the expected performance of your favourite team.

Handicap bets, don’t let them slip away!

Placing our bets on the big favourite when the odds are below 1.25 is the worst idea we can have. It is not profitable at all, as there are many factors that can cause the team that is expected to win to be surprised by its rival and end up losing. Given the low payout on each euro bet, it is clear that it is not worth the investment to make a profit.

In these cases, bookmakers offer handicap betting, a type of prediction in which we add or subtract a figure to the actual result of the match so that our team has to win or lose by a certain margin. Thus, with a handicap of -11 for our favourite, our favourite would have to win by 12 points or more for our bet to be successful.

With this type of handicapping system, the odds in favour of the favourite usually increase sufficiently to be of interest to us, although we should not jump in headlong. For example, one of the team’s key players may be out of form or injured, and a setback in the middle of the game could change the course of the match and mean that a victory is not so easy or that the favourite succumbs against all odds.

In other words, the precept of professional bettors is to move into those leagues where the focus of betting analysts is not so concentrated. That’s exactly what you should do, against the opinion of the average bettor. You can, of course, move towards different not-so-football countries, perhaps to other continents, but why. Just look at the top 5 league countries, only the lower divisions. In this review we will be introducing you to the French Ligue 2 in a betting context. We will take a look at the calendar and the format of this tournament. We will take a personal look at the teams that play in this group, mentioning the peculiarities of the bets and working play strategies for each of them. We will also look at the commonalities in the French Ligue 2.

TURNING FORMAT

There are 20 teams in Ligue 2 France. A respectable pool of clubs, a full-fledged league on a par with the top flight. The format is very typical for such a large number of participants: two rounds, each team plays two matches against each other, one at home and one away. The season thus consists of 38 rounds, a respectable distance.

The winner of Ligue 2 and the runner-up is automatically promoted to Ligue 1 for the following season. A further 3 clubs from 3rd to 5th places qualify for the play-offs. The holders of positions 4 and 5 play each other in the quarterfinals first. The winner of this pairing qualifies for the semi-finals against the third team. In phases 1/2 and 1/4 there is one match each, where the home team is the club with the higher ranking in the main phase. The final of this mini play-off takes place between the winner of the semi-finals and the team ranked third from bottom in Ligue 1. There is already a two-match format (home and away). The winner will play in the elite next season and the loser in Ligue 2.

The situation at the bottom of the final rankings is more or less the same. The two worst teams in the group go directly to the Ligue nationale (the third ranked division of the French championships). The third team from the bottom will play a two-match play-off with the third team from the National league. Same thing: The winner will play in the higher, second division and the loser will play in the third division.

The Ligue 2 tournament follows roughly the same calendar as Ligue 1. It is a typical Central and Southern European “autumn-spring” system. The league season starts at the end of July or at the beginning of August. The winter break is very short, from the twentieth of December, the Catholic Christmas, until the first decade of January. In other words, nothing at all. France’s mild climate favours this. It all comes to an end in late May. The relegation play-offs can last until the first few days of June. So there’s a summer break of about two months, with time to eat croissants and baguettes outside Bordeaux.

LORIAN

Prior to the 2017-2018 season, the club Lorient played several draws in France’s top division, Ligue 1. But this is the third championship the team has played in Ligue 2. In the last couple of seasons, the team failed to qualify for the play-offs, sometimes staying one step back or a couple of places short. In the current campaign they decided not to indulge and went straight back to the elite. Before the spring leg of the tournament, Lorient were in first place by a good margin.

Of course, in February a slight relaxation overtook the team, the leaders began to lose points, defeats began to alternate with victories. That eventually cut the gap to four points. This situation will clearly spur the team on and it’s worth expecting Lorient to make another run for it, in order not to let their rivals get any closer.

Particularly great in the current Ligue 2 draw, the team has performed well at home. Barring a few defeats on the back of relaxation, Lorient at home are very formidable. Of course, there have been few defeats, dominated by modest minimal victories: 1-0, 2-1. You can play them as a favourite, but with caution. You certainly shouldn’t play with minus handicaps, it’s France. Where it works out, it will be worth playing a zero handicap. It is normal to take their ITB(0.5), ITB(1) on Lorient at home.

Lorient also plays well on the road, but of course their average loss of points is a bit higher. Here too, you can play them from a position of strength, on zero handicaps, double odds X2, moderate ITB from 0.5 or 1.