Brazil stand out in dense fog of friendly internationals

Unless you’re prepared to bit of time and effort into it, it’s hard to avoid the conclusion that betting on friendly international games is a foolish enough affair. Having neither the time, on the day of the game here in London, nor the energy, after have seemed a long few days here, to put in the effort, I’m sort of aware that I should probably steer clear of most of the midweek programme although to be fair, there is enough information at hand to suggest that Brazil look a decent bet to beat Ireland at the Emirates this evening.

The problem is straightforward enough: unless you are following closely what is going on in the build up to a friendly game, you can be terribly misled by form or other factors. Last year, for instance, there was a fairly handy profit to be made on Northern Ireland’s visit to Italy in June. The Italians played a weakened team in order to look at fringe players which initially made them look less likely winners but then Nigel Worthington arrived with a squad based largely around Irish League  players who were a couple of weeks out of season. There was, as they say, only going to be one outcome.

Tonight at the Emirates, meanwhile, the Republic face Brazil with a back four that consists of Paul McShane, Stephen Kelly, Sean St Ledger and Kevin Kilbane. All are good, honest player but none is remotely in the class of the strikers they will be aiming to contain and, even with Dunga suggesting on Monday that his first priority is to send his players back to their clubs uninjured, it would be pretty remarkable if the five times world champions don’t win the game (4/9) and fairly likely they’ll manage to beat their handicap of a goal to a goal and a half.

Irish hopes of getting some sort of result are bolstered somewhat by the sudden return of Robbie Keane but the manner in which that news broke last night only serves to highlight how risky this all is. The FAI sent word around o Irish journalists at about 8.30 in the evening but the English papers I’ve been reading here in London this morning still have him out so, as I say, a bit of reading around is advisable.

Having said that, I’m going to ignore my own advice and plough ahead with doubles that include bets on the likes of Turkey, Cyprus and Slovenia to win. Any one of them, could be about to field a team of children who have won prizes offered by association sponsors to play in the games but, as time is tight, I’m going to hope that not all of them are.

Certainly, Northern Ireland travel to Albania with a weakened squad again and no central defenders worth talking about while my hunch is that the Turks should be a match for the Hondurans in pretty much any circumstances. That might, in fact, be the game to pair with the Brazil one. Or perhaps, it’s simply an occasion for wiser punters to keep their hands in their pockets.

€25 double on Brazil (-1/1.5) to beat Ireland and Finland (-1) to win in Malta @ 3.87.

€25 double on Turkey (-1) to beat Honduras and Cyprus (0/-0.5) to beat Iceland @ 3.71.

€25 double on Albania (0) to beat Northern Ireland and Slovenia (-1) to beat Qatar @ 3.02.

Categories: Soccer