WEDNESDAY JULY 25th

WEDNESDAY JULY 25th

The week really starts today and we have plenty to interest us in the coming days. I will send a full schedule/agenda with Thursday's email.
BRAZIL SERIE A:

GREMIO - FLUMINENESE

We discussed Fluminense on Sunday.....

PONTE PRETA - FLUMINENSE

Hosts must be pleased with their first season back in the top flight after five years in B, they are secure in midtable at present with a very decent 3-1-1 home record, however, if we look a little more closely at those wins, they have beaten two of the bottom five and one was more interested in the cup at that time and Corinthians, who sent their reserves, due to Copa Libertadores commitments. Today they will be without suspended Tiago Alves in central defence and it is worth noting that the only match he has missed previously this season, was their only home defeat, fellow centreback Wesley remains out with a long term injury.

Fluminense are unbeaten this season with a 6-4-0 record and currently sit in third place, the top two both won last night and opened at a gap at the head of affairs so the visitors will be very motivated to claim the three points tonight to stay in touch, especially ahead of a tough trip to fourth placed Gremio ( who have already won four at home) in midweek. Flu have scored in all five road games and have the meanest defence in Brazil. Upfront, Fred has been in stunning form, with five goals and four assists from just five starts and he had a hand in all four goals in the 4-0 win over Bahia in midweek and he has developed a very productive partnership and understanding with evergreen Deco, who has a goal and five assists in six starts. Their only absentees are defensive midfielders Diguinho and Edwin Valencia, neither has played much at all domestically this season, just 50 minutes for Valencia, so hard to see them as big losses any more and Diguinho is said to be close to a return in any case.  Fluminense should not go home empty handed and they are my pick. 1.25 units Fluminense -0.25 ball 2.02 asian line.

Flu won that 2-1, the hosts said they were hard done by, but I felt it was a fair result overall. The visitors remain unbeaten in the league with a 7-4-0 record, but the games are now coming thick and fast and Grenmio are a strong home team ( 4-0-1) and have conceded only twice here in Porto Alegre, Flu have only conceded four on the road in six outings, but with some tired legs on the field tonight and this the fourth start inside ten days for both, we might see a few errors and goals this evening.

At around the the same time Flu were winning, Gremio were beating Botafogo on the road 1-0, that was a nice win and achieved without striker Kleber who was suspended, he has been increasingly influential this season and had a goal and two assists in the previous two matches, in which ,Gremio scored three goals in both, he returns to the squad tonight. However, they will be without right sided defender Tony tonight and left backs Fabio Aurelio and Julio Cesar remain out with long term injuries, which leaves then short of experience and options wide defensively.

The visitors will be without the suspended Jean , he is a defensive midfielder like Diguinho and Edwin Valencia ( see above) and Flu conceded almost as soon as he left the pitch on Sunday, they are getting a little short of options in this area now and with left back Carlinhos also suspended, that is two key defensive players out for Fluminense. Jean has played in all 11 league games, only missing out on 43 minutes of play, Carlinos in 19 league and Copa games, so big losses IMO. However, at the other end of the pitch , once again Fred was a big player at the weekend, that's six goals and four assists for him in six starts and Flu have now scored in all six road games.

Some info for any of you looking to play this one "in running" Gremio have scored 53% and conceded 58% of their goals in the last 30 minutes and top scorer Marcelo Moreno's five goals have all come after the 27th minute. There have been nine goals in Flu's last three starts, eight came in the second half ( the other in first half injury time) , six after the 67th minute.

Last eight h2h meetings here have averaged exactly 4.0 goals, all two or more, with six "over". I will take a little on the "over" 2.5 goal line @ 2.04, just one unit for now, but I might push this bet a little in running, maybe at the break, if it looks open but the goals have not come, or maybe only one, as given the stats and schedule these have had, it should get increasingly stretched.

ELSEWHERE IN BRAZIL:

The big news is that Figueirense have a new coach ..... Argel Fucks ! I will say no more, apart from it would not be possible to coach in England with that surname, your life would be made a misery ! His side are really struggling, they are without a win in ten + starts, they have not kept a cleansheet in seven and have conceded 13 in their last five. Tonight they host Internacional (who scored four at the weekend )and have to do so without suspended centreback Fred ( a different one !), he has started the last four games. However, they might have veteran striker Sebastian Abreu back tonight, they have a good record in this fixture and we also have the new coach effect to consider.

Coritiba are very poor on the road, just two points, so I guess I saw the best of them in a 2-2 draw at Santos recently, they probably should have lost that, but showed plenty of attacking intent and were very dangerous on the break. They twice came from behind that night and fought back from two down to claim a share of the spoils at Bahia over the weekend, those are their two road points, at least we know they will battle if falling behind. I do feel they were distracted by they run to the final of the Copa do Brasil and admit to being a little interested in them tonight, they have three players back from suspension which means that they can field their first choice central defensive partnership of Emerson and Fabio Pereira, Coritibia have avoided defeat in three of the four games the pair have played together this season.

Nautico Recife have a decent home record, but their need is not as great as the visitors, who sit just outside the bottom and who face three of the top 4 in their next three starts and then face Copa champions Corinthians, so this is as  easy as it is going to get for them for a while. Plus point is that Coritiba do have goals in them, scoring in their last ten league games ( 17 in total), two or more in six of those. If the centre backs can steady them at the rear, they should be capable of getting a point or more here  +0.25 ball ( circa 2.0) on the asian markets would be my pick, they are not a team to trust completely,but I one I expect to improve a little, I also saw 2.625 for them to score two or more around which was also tempting.

Corinthians have sold Alex to Al-Gharafa, Douglas is/was his natural replacement and thrived over the last two games, scoring three of Corinthians four goals, however, he is suspended today. The problem is that none of the strikers have been scoring, only youngster Romarinho has managed more than one and he is more of a B team player at present, albeit a promising one. Goals might be a problem for the hosts today.

Cruzeiro are without holding midfielder Charles, they have lost only one match this season when he has played an hour or more ( seven matches), also out is central defender Leo, but they did keep a cleansheet without him on Sunday.

This is traditionally a low scoring game, seven of the last nine meetings have produced one goal or less, the visitors arrive on the back of two cleansheets and hosts are missing some offensive threat. The two missing players are enough to put me off Cruzeiro with the handicap start which was going to be my pick, hard to see either scoring twice in this one, under 2.25 goals at 2.05 looks solid if you twisted my arm for a pick. Also, given that Corinthians have scored just two first half home goals in six starts and Cruzeiro just one first half road goal in five, there must be a good chance you can trade out for a profit with this bet.

CHAMPIONS LEAGUE :

I have some VERY solid news about one of the teams playing Champions League football this midweek, but am going to sit on my hands and save it for the third leg tie next week , as they are going to be a much bigger price then and if the odds are as expected, that will be just our fourth maximum bet of 2012.

From a betting perspective, tonight's matches hold little interest, I understand that BATE are going through a tough time at present, they needed two injury time goals to turn the first leg around and take an advantage of any sort to Macedonia for the return leg with FK Vardar in Skopje. The visitors are far more experienced at this level and have twice made it through to the group stage, last season and in 2008-09, when they were a pretty good team. They have certainly regressed a little since then and by their normal standards are in freefall ! They lead their domestic league by three points with a game in hand, but their lead is normally double figures and they have collected just two points from their last three league starts. They will sorely miss midfielders Renan Bressan ( 15 starts-4 goals- 3 assists) and Dmitri Baga ( 15-5-4), plus defender Denis Polyakov ( 13 starts), all of whom are in action at the Olympics and word is that Vardar and their supporters are really up for this one. The match is a 33,000 sell out, the atmosphere will be white hot and odds look on the skinny side for the visitors, who do not need to win, but I know very little about the home side ( I did try to get hold of some highlights)  , so will have to pass. However, if this is a match you are interested in Bate do have their own YouTube channel and you can see a lot of highlights of recent games on there and yes, they are struggling atm !  LINK

WOMEN'S OLYMPIC FOOTBALL:

USA - FRANCE

Both these two will qualify from Group G and each has been in tremendous form this year, we spoke about the US yesterday ( reproduced below) and the French are a perfect 10-0-0 in 2012, with seven straight clean sheets, albeit with six of those on home soil. That indicates a very strong backline, but I have my doubts and feel they have a big weakness defending crosses into the box, with no real established partner for Laura Georges. They are short of top quality defenders and effectively play a midfielder, albeit a very talented one, on the left of the backline. Going forward they are very good and in Louisa Necib have a world class playmaker, who will be providing the bullets for a quartet of prolific strikers in Marie-Laure Delie, Eugenie Le Sommer, Gaetane Thiney and Elodie Thomis. They might have some joy against the US backline which lacks pace through the centre.

However, as good as the French might be offensively, they are not in the same league as the americans, Abby Wambach, Alex Morgan, Lauren Cheney, Amy Rodriguez and Sydney LeRoux offer an almost undefendable threat, with pace, talent and in the prolific veteran Wambach, size. She is going to be a massive threat in the air against France and I think that will be the difference, not just via her, but through crosses generally. In the 2011 World Cup semi-final ,which the US won 3-1in Moenchengladbach just over 12 months ago, two of US goals came from crosses and the physically imposing Wambach could easily have had a hat-trick. Shannon Boxx, Heather O'Reilly and the lightning quick Amy Rodriguez can all deliver quality into the box and the US will surely be looking to milk this. In that last meeting, France did have a lot of attempts on goal, but almost all were long range efforts and there was a little luck about their goal. The US match up well against the French, but they are the two big players in the group and a win is not essential, having said tha,t two of the three third placed teams will qualify for the quarter finals and so the pressure is not quite so great as we normally see in major championships and both should play their natural game. One unit USA -0.75 ball 2.16+ asian line.


Good Luck

OLYMPICS : WOMEN'S FOOTBALL OUTRIGHT ( written 24/07)

Japan were surprise winners at last year's World Cup and have a decent draw here, but I strongly favour the US team to get revenge and claim a third straight Olympic crown. I like the mix of the American squad and they will be out for revenge, not sure how they failed to beat the Japanese in that final in Frankfurt, having had 27 attempts on goal, but I just do not see it happening again. They are 13-1-1 this year, the two games they failed to win were both against Japan, but they put all that right in Sweden last month beating the World Champions 4-1, with 19 attempts on goal , 11 on target. They have also seen off Brazil ( restricting the Marta less Samba girls to just one attempt on target) 3-0, Sweden twice by a combined goal difference of 7-1 and China 4-1, all in the last four months.

The US squad is hugely experienced, seven of the squad have over 100 caps and four well over 160 ! For at least four of the senior players this is going to be their swansong, a chance to finish on a high in their final major championship and a trio of gold medals is the perfect way to sign off. For them, that loss in Germany to Japan really hurt, the run to the final and especially that very brave win over Brazil where they came back from the dead with ten women, captured the public's imagination and they were being watched by the biggest audience in women's football history and it was the perfect opportunity to put their sport on the map, but at the end of the day, in the US, they only remember winners.

Amongst the rest of the squad are the next generation of players, hungry to emulate their team mates, players they have grown up idolising. What is key is that all of this squad want the Olympic experience, but they are stuck up in Scotland and the only way they are going to get down to London and the Olympic Village is to make the semis and more likely given their draw, the final. They also have perhaps a bigger agenda in terms of football in the US, this year saw the Women's Professional Soccer League fold in May due to a legal dispute, leaving many of the players without a club ( over half the squad), many others moved to semi-professional soccer, but the loss of the professional league was huge. The squad believe that out of potential US Olympic glory, a new professional women's soccer league will be reformed and that is a further massive incentive. Bonus out of all this turmoil is that it has given the squad a long time to recover from the rigors of this and last season and a massive amount of time together to gel and thrive, we saw the benefits of this from Zambia ( who had been together for months) at the ACN earlier in the year and with the US performances in Sweden last month.

In the game there against Japan, the USA controlled the tempo of the match with some fanatstic pressing and ball possession of the year, not something we always associate with them. The Japanese were forced into a lot of errors and the margin of victory could have been far greater, it was a terrific performance against an opponent who had troubled them previously and a sign that despite the age of some of the squad, they are still learning and improving. I have a little more to say about them, but will save those comments for the games ahead, especially the match up against the talented French team. I made the USA a maximum 2.50 to win gold and have to put them up as a confident 1.75 unit selection to win outright @ 3.0 + this is available pretty much across the board, there is a little 3.25 in a place or two.

Good Luck.