Soccer Betting

Busy, busy weekend coming up at sportsbooks all over the world and we’ll get it started with some soccer betting action from the UEFA Europa League. There’s a full slate of games in Europa League play today but we’ll take a look at a 3 PM Eastern/12 noon Pacific start time game between Fulham and Juventus. Fulham is a decent English Premier League side currently ranked 10th. Juventus is historically one of the top teams in all of European soccer, on the same level as Spain’s Real Madrid or England’s top teams Chelsea and Manchester United. For those of you who think soccer is boring, Google ‘Serie A match fixing scandal’ and read about Juventus’ fate over the past decade or so. Basically, former Juventus general manager Luciano Moggi and officials from several major Serie A teams were running Italian soccer like Tony Soprano and Johnny Sack ran the garbage collection business of the NYC metro area. Moggi would eventually be banned from football for five years with a recommendation for a lifetime ban, while Juventus was demoted to Serie B for the first time in its history. Juvie has struggled somewhat since making it back to the top tier of Italian soccer, which led to the dismissal of team manager Ciro Ferrara in January. He was replaced by Alberto Zaccheroni and his tenure has been a ’so far, so good’ situation.

Like its American sports betting counterpart the NFL, the English Premier League has its own weekly Monday Night primetime game.  Well, it’s prime time in the UK–here it starts at 12 noon Pacific time which would be 3 PM on the East Coast.  This week Liverpool goes on the road to face lowly Wigan City.  Liverpool is 6th place in the EPL standings but they’re a single point behind Manchester City and Tottenham Hotspur who are tied for 4th.  Basically, 1st through 3rd are already out of reach for these three teams as Chelsea, Manchester United and Arsenal are fighting amongst themselves over these spots.  Right now third place Arsenal leads Manchester City and Tottenham by 12 points, so basically the two important spots that are up for grabs are 4th and 5th.  4th place gets a shot to qualify for the Champions League while 5th place gets to play in the UEFA Europa League.

We’ll go down further in the heirarchy of English soccer betting for a Tuesday game in England’s League One.  We’ve probably gone over this before but here’s how things work in England’s soccer world.  At the top of the food chain is the English Premier League.  Second is the Football Championship, nominally the ‘Triple A’ of British soccer.  Below that is League One and below that League Two.  Below *that* is Conference National and, no, I don’t have any clue why they just don’t call it ‘League Three’.

The really cool thing about European soccer is relegation and promotion.  At the end of the year, the teams that finish at the top of their respective leagues move up to the next level while the teams at the bottom get relegated to a lower level.  So the top two teams in the Football Championship League go up to the Premier League, while the bottom teams in the Premier League go down to the Football Championship.  Obviously, being in the Premier League means a *lot* more money for team owners so they’ve got a vested interest to get there.

Back to soccer betting action for Sunday as Liverpool gets back into English Premier League play with a home game against the Blackburn Rovers.  The last time we saw Liverpool in action they were cashing a ticket for us as they beat Unirea Urziceni in Europa League play.  Now that they’re back at home, they’ll have to maintain their good form to stay in sight of the top of the EPL table.  Manchester City got a leg up on Liverpool and Tottenham Hotspur for the #4 spot with their upset road win at Chelsea on Saturday.  It was Chelsea’s first loss at Stamford Bridge this season, and gave Manchester City a 3 point lead over Tottenham and a 4 point lead over Liverpool and Aston Villa.  The good news is that Blackburn is a lower half of the table squad and that’s exactly what Liverpool needs to stay in contention.