The Best Football System Ever?

The Best Football System Ever?So, a curious week.... Did my brains on the Winter Derby when I got it nearly right, but the slow pace cost me a packet.Not to worry, for every week is a punting marathon and not a punting sprint.The England-Israel game was one that I was looking forward to, although I felt that it was a tough ask for England to get all three points there. I did expect England to play well though.As it transpired, I think the coach got his tactics pretty much spot on, and the players didn't deliver. Israel showed no invention whatsoever after the first eight minutes or so, and we should have won. Johnson and Lampard missed very presentable opportunities and, given both players' undoubted pedigree, I put it down to lack of confidence.The grief that McLaren received was - in my opinion - uncalled for. He did his job, the players failed to do theirs.It was the same against Pandora on Wednesday. Playing, as one wag observed, 'a ski resort' should have resulted in a facile victory. But though Andorra are poor in the extreme, they are still quite savvy. In a game they had no chance of winning, they set about making it as difficult as possible for England by beating them up. I think the ref was poor - I normally expect Portuguese refs to put hand to pocket in seach of cards more often.Nonetheless, Johnson looked better (though most of his best work was outside the box). Lampard was injured / not selected, and Gerrard ran the show from midfield. This now makes life difficult for 'the Lamp', as he has clearly been usurped as England's globetrotting goalgetting central midfielder.Downing was abject, and has been every time he's put the shirt on. He's in no form for his club and simply should not have been in the squad. I'd have much rather seen Phil Neville or Gareth Barry play there.The final score shows 3-0 to England, and its this point that I want to share as one of the great football systems in my opinion.Here we are, England, playing a ski resort. Wales were playing a principality stuck in a mountain range in Northern Italy. These teams can't score, and they don't score (except very occasionally).So why is it still 6-1 about their opponents scoring three, four or five against them? On Wednesday I had what is, for me, a decent football bet:I selected England to win 3-0 or 4-0, and Wales to win by one of the same two scores. This makes four doubles, each of which I stakes ?25 with Ladbrokes (who don't like me!)The odds on the double were 44.5/1! Can that be right?! I returned over a thousand pounds for picking England and Wales to beat pub sides by three or four strikes.Even for ?2.50 stakes, you'd have still got back over a ton.I urge to look at the international matches and find the pub sides, then bet their opponents to win 'to nil' (you just have to get the number of goals scored right!).Lest you think I'm the new football betting Messiah (no danger, I know!), let me tell you that I thought the bet of the night was Latvia to beat Liechtenstein away. Trading at over 1/2 on Betfair, I passed it up. Thank God, the Lichtenstinians (if that's what they are) won 1-0, and this humble scribe smells a rat.I wouldn't be surprised if smart money was down on the little fancied home team - there are some big punters and some cowboys in the Baltic region (I should know: I've been to Riga twice, and Tallinn twice in the last 18 months!)Anyway, while on the subject of awesome football systems, here is another favourite of mine:"Spanish refs, buys the cards" - this applies predominantly to Champions League games. The Spanish refs all have nervous twitches that move their hand to pocket throughout the game. They also, joyfully, have none of the concerns that other nations' arbitrators do about producing a second 'tarjeta amarillo' (thats yellow card to you and me), making for a nice big fat juicy 25 point carte rouge (I don't know the Spanish for red!).Look out for the Champions League games facilitated by matadors, and you will be in clover, dear friend.Best RegardsMattp.s. Check out my racing website, www.trainerflatstats.com for all the best stats for the UK turf flat racing season.

Matt Bisogno is a lifelong horseracing and betting enthusiast, and has published a number of statistical analyses of trainer patterns for horse racing betting purposes.