'What we do isn't rocket science': how Midtjylland started football's data revolution




https://www.theguardian.com/football...ata-revolution

Super interesting. Id be interested in reading more about the specific things that these guys feel are big inefficiencies at the top level. Any material on that kind of thing?

I dont have any. But, unlike the academic work on soccer about poisson, or mcmc kinda stuff, that's avaiable everywhere for free.

Those meaningfull work has big big value.

It his big data driven, not based on simple parameters too.

Normally just poke at stale lines these days, but might share the occasional handicapped stuff here too.

Grabbed the Sounders -130 to advance tomorrow before bed last night. Would bet it up to -138. Let's call it 1.3u to win 1u at -130.

0-0, +0u

Missed the middle 30 min of the game to a power outage, but Seattle were pretty firmly in control from what I did see. Didn't even look like the two teams belonged in the same league. Probably could have handled a line closer to -160 or worse.

1-0, +1u

(1-0, +1u ytd)

Been really crushing the Europa League and Champions League wagers this year, so probably gonna toss a few out here this week. A few teams are already advanced in the EL so we have some mismatched incentives.

Group B

Arsenal have advanced while Molde and Rapid Vienna are still fighting each other. I like Molde to pummel Dundalk at home and Rapid Vienna to at least keep their game close early. Arsenal have looked a bit poopy to boot and have little to play for here.

Molde -2 vs Dundalk (-120, 1.2u to win 1u)
Rapid Vienna +0.5 at Arsenal 1H (+113, 1u to win 1.13u)


Group C

Slavia Prague got beat 1-3 in Israel and are very much a better team. They're also playing a win-and-in for the group stage and get this one at home. Have to imagine this spread would be wider if the away leg hadn't gone so poorly.

Slavia Prague -1.5 vs Hapoel Be'er Sheva (-103, 1.03u to win 1u)


Group D

Rangers and Benfica both get home games against inferior teams. Both lock up advancement with wins and both opponents are virtually eliminated, so these could snowball quickly.

Benfica -1.5 vs Lech Poznan (-128, 1.28u to win 1u)
Rangers -1.25 vs Standard Liege (+106, 1u to win 1.06u)


Group L

Hoffenheim has advanced already and host Crvena Zvezda. Honestly surprised this isn't closer to a coinflip but Belgrade is getting a quarter goal. I have a piece of +0.25 at -108 for the full game and -144 for the 1H. Betting draws 3-way is usually pretty fishy but at +230 it's at least interesting. Both teams are locked with a draw. I think this all implies a high scoring game is pretty unlikely so I'm on the under 3 also.

Crvena Zvezda +0.25 at Hoffenheim (-109, 1.09u to win 1u)
Hoffenheim/Crvena Zveda u3 (-121, 2.42u to win 2u)

I have better prices on most of these but these prices are all sitting at BOL right now so you can probably find better by shopping around. My bet is that most of these are better grabbing earlier rather than later. Note that gameday isn't until Thursday.

Also taking Sporting Kansas City -260 to advance (1.3u to win 0.5u) Wednesday evening.

KC are -260 and I think this should be closer to -300. There's not a huge edge here but I think there's edge enough to bet it. Would estimate that this is playable up to around -280.

Pinnacle has them at -144
And intertops line is -154
Bookmaker has them at -142

Which book are you using qotd?
I'm not questioning your pick, but -260 is a pretty bad price.

I'm taking prices from BOL, folks are happy to price shop elsewhere. But I'm certain you're looking at the line for them to win in regulation, rather than to advance outright.

Ok.

It occurred to me that the line could also have moved since you placed your bet.

My mistake.

No problem, good looking out. And good luck

Was hoping to get a few extra cents on this one over the week but going to pull the trigger at -103. Was sitting here a few days ago, rose to -110, and now it's back. Don't really want to guess at which way it moves from here.

Seattle Sounders/FC Dallas u2.75 -103, 1.03u to win 1u

Been working on some modeling projects that suggested both Seattle/LA FC o3 and Portland/FC Dallas u2.75 (both winners, 3-1 and 1-1 after 90 minutes, respectively). I think the u2.75 could be as much as a quarter goal too high, but I don't have enough data tracked to feel confident about it.

Either way, there are gonna be a lot of 2-0, 1-1, and then some 2-1 scores with this one. If we hit the third goal early this one could get out of hand and look very silly, but I like it anyway. Very curious to see if Dallas can control the tempo like they did in Portland the other day.

Should've waited a half hour. +104 now. Topping it off a little but not gonna track that part here.

Was a little worried when Seattle scored so quickly in the 2H, since that opened up the game a ton immediately afterward. But it otherwise played out pretty closely to how I had hoped.

2-0, +2u ytd

Molde 3 - 1 Dundalk (push)
Arsenal 3 - 0 Rapid Vienna (1H) (loss)
Slavia Prague 3 - 0 Hapoel Be'er Sheva (win)
Benfica 4 - 0 Lech Poznan (win)
Rangers 3 - 2 St. Liege (half loss)
Crvena Zvezda 0 - 0 Hoffenheim (half win, win)

Europa League today was 3.5 - 1.5 - 2 for +3u. Dundalk scored in the 94th minute to turn a 3-0 win into a 3-1 push. Arsenal looked good and Rapid Vienna looked like garbage. Didn't watch the other games to know how good/bad these wagers were but 3 of them beat the closing lines by a ton, 2 beat the closing lines by a little, and 2 looked bad by kickoff.

Only thing pending here is Sporting KC tonight -260 to advance.

5.5 - 1.5 - 2, +5u ytd

Pretty big miss here. Market came back against me over the last couple of days, and then KC missed 2-3 really good shots on goal early in the 1st half and got snowballed after conceding one right back.

Was feeling great through the first 25 minutes and felt OK through the first 35 minutes. Coming back from a 3-0 deficit in the second half was never going to happen though.

5.5 - 2.5 - 2, +3.7u ytd.

pretty good start thank you for posting

It's fun to sweat public bets. I'll at least keep them coming through the end of the CL/EL group stages and the MLS Cup final.

(5.5 - 2.5 - 2, +3.7u ytd)

Here's a fun one. Unless someone can point out a math/tiebreaker error below, I'm taking:

Borussia Monchengladbach to win Group B +175, 1u to win 1.75u

This won't grade until next Wednesday, but I strongly suspect the +175 on BOL will not last the week and will hone in closer to +150. Anchoring with Pinny's moneylines the fair price should be +140 and as far as I can see, other sites have this priced at +150. I already have some at +225 from last week or I would probably wager more.

Pinny vig-free odds while posting:

Real Madrid 0.556435354 to win outright (-138)
Gladbach 0.182790357925493 to win outright (+425)
Draw 0.260774288 (+268)

Inter 0.729578741 to win outright (-313)
Shakhtar 0.103290879 to win outright (+832)
Draw 0.16713038 (+476)

The two games are played simultaneously and I think it's reasonable to assume they're independent events. I don't think there are any in-play outcomes during Inter/Shakhtar that can truly influence the Real/Gladbach game in a way that costs us money. If Shakhtar is blasting Inter early, then Real Madrid must win outright. However, they've got plenty of incentives to win outright already as it's the only way they can actually win the group.

That gives us the following results:



Gladbach wins the group every time they win the game outright, but also every time they draw and Shakhtar does not win their game.

Real Madrid wins the group every time they win and Shakhtar does not win their game.

Shakhtar wins the group when they and Real Madrid both win.

Inter cannot win the group.

That converts to:

To Win Group B
Real Madrid +100
Borussia Monchengladbach +140
Shakhtar Donetsk +1085

Or to look at it another way:

Gladbach +0.5 on Pinny is +119. We're instead getting +175 on that, except that on a draw we lose the wager 10% of the time (~2.9% overall).

And since the work is already done, here is the same for:

To Advance Group B
Real Madrid -295
Borussia Monchengladbach -116
Shakhtar Donetsk +464
Inter Milan -117

If you can't get +175 now, it might be worth waiting for a few days to see how the moneyline changes between now and Wednesday. I can't imagine a team as public as Real Madrid will have an obviously +EV moneyline hanging around all week long, so even if the line does move toward them I don't know how much I'd reevaluate. But if it steams hard toward Real at some point it might scare me off the worse price. If nothing changes I'd surely bet this down to +150.

Nice analysis, wp

(5.5 - 2.5 - 2, +3.7u ytd)

Europa League 12/10 (next Thursday)

Group B

Rapid Vienna/Molde o3 -103, 1.03u to win 1u

I think this one is underpriced by a bit because the first leg of this matchup finished 1-0 in favor of Molde. However, the scores for Molde's other games in the group have been 3, 5, 3, 4 and for Rapid Vienna they've been 3, 7, 4, 5. Lots of goals scored on both sides of the ball and for both teams. Even looking at expected goals scored and allowed, the teams have averaged 3.45 xG+xGA per game across their 5 previous and the first leg was Molde 3.2 - 0.6 Rapid Vienna.

But maybe more importantly, Rapid Vienna needs to win this game to advance, but they also need to win it by either a 2-goal margin or with 2+ goals. A 1-0 victory, a 1-1 tie, or an outright loss and they are eliminated. They need a 2-1 win or better or a 2-0 win or better to advance.

So, while Molde can sit on a draw and advance, I think there are plenty of reasons to assume both teams will push for goals at all stages of the game. I think this line should be significantly closer to 3.25.

Group F

I'm watching the Napoli/Real Socieded total in case it comes down from o2.5 -121 throughout the week. Both teams have scored (and conceded) very few goals and the first leg was a 1-0 win for Real Socieded. So, I suspect the line might come down a little bit and get us a better price in the next few days.

I like the over because both teams have run cold on their scoring vs expectation, and that might be deflating this total by a decent bit. Also, because AZ is so likely to pummel Rijeka in the other game, Real Socieded in particular are going to have to push for scoring so they don't draw themselves out of the tournament.

o2.5 -110 is probably my trigger point to grab it.

That's it for now, these weeks where very few games actually matter for advancement make it difficult to find too much that looks good. The rest of my holdings will probably all just be chasing steam.

(5.5 - 2.5 - 2, +3.7u ytd)

Europa League 12/10 (next Thursday)

Group A

CSKA Sofia/AS Roma u3 -113, 1.13u to win 1u

Roma has locked up the group win, CSKA Sofia has been eliminated, so there's not a lot to play for here. Sofia have not yet scored a goal through 5 matches. The first leg of the matchup was 0-0 in Rome, four of CSKA Sofia's games have gone under 3 (and the fifth would have pushed).

I just don't see Roma pressing particularly hard to score and Sofia don't seem particularly capable of scoring. This is another total that might be at least a quarter goal too high.

Group K

Feyenoord -119 at Wolfsberger AC, 1.19u to win 1u

Sat on this one for a little while and I think it's good enough to recommend. In the (small sample size of) 4 group games of shared opponents, Feyenoord scored 3 goals and conceded 3. Wolfsberger scored 2 and conceded 5. Their previous game against each other one was a weird one, Wolfsberger were awarded two quick penalty kicks and a third penalty kick late to win 4-1 away.

So let's look at domestic games for a larger sample. Feyenoord sits in 4th place through 11 matches, scoring 23 goals and conceding 11. Meanwhile Wolfsberger sits at 7th place in their table, scoring 16 goals and conceding 20 through 9 matches. Both leagues are roughly similar in terms of quality.

Wolfsberger advances with a draw so I'm happy to take the pk instead of the outright win at better odds. I think I would bet this down to at least -125.

Also still have an outstanding wager in each of the Champions and Europa Leagues posted above.

(5.5 - 2.5 - 2, +3.7u ytd)

One more for now in advance of the MLS game tonight:

Columbus +185 to win MLS Cup, 1u to win 1.85u

My basic model suggests Columbus should be favored outright at home against both Western Conference finalists, so I'm going to lock this up now even if there *might* be a better price in the next few days if Seattle advances. I have a feeling I'm just going to be pretty heavy on Columbus either way this week. I don't think they necessarily *should* be favored outright, since my model is probably overrating them in what's been a weird, small-sample size season. But I do think that the fair price here is a lot closer to +100 than it is +185 and that would make 1u an egregious underbet.

Note that this grades next week 12/12.

Good job everybody, Columbus and Gladbach have both been bet down to +150 on BOL. I think there's still value on both at these prices but glad I got in already.

I got in on Gladbach at +175 too, had some on them at +240 from when the line first posted too. +150 isn't enough.