Match Statistics of European Top Leagues

Correct Scores on foreign Soil

Cyril's Betting Advice
Cyril's Betting Advice

Having looked at the correct score scene in the Premiership, I thought it might be opportune to check through the foreign leagues and the Championship, as well. The comparisons will vary somewhat as not all leagues play the same number of matches. To help overcome these differences I’m basing all figures on a league playing 380 games. So alongside actual returned figures, where appropriate, I’ll show in brackets the comparative figures for 380 games.

First of all I’ll look at the Championship.

The Championship consists of twenty four teams, so the total of games played is FIVE HUNDRED and FIFTY TWO. By far the largest sample to be looked at.

The final columns are,(1) the total of both the “draw” columns.(2) Percentage of games covered by the SIX scores.

Correct scores on foreign soils

  1 - 0 2 - 0 2 - 1 3 - 1 0 - 0 1 - 1 (1) (2) %
Championship 58 (40) 44 (30) 44 (30) 22 (15) 41 (28) 73 (50) 114 (78) 51.08
La Liga 43        18        35        17        33        41        74        49.21
Serie A 33        41        30        16        44        31        75        51.31
Bundesliga 1 24 (30) 22 (27) 19 (24) 15 (18) 22 (27) 36 (44) 58 (71) 45.09
France Div 1 46        40        36        16        27        60        87        59.21
Portugal Liga 29 (54) 18 (33) 26 (48) 14 (26) 24 (45) 18 (33) 42 (78) 58.93
Eredivision 23 (29) 24 (30) 19 (24) 19 (24) 10 (12) 24 (30) 34 (42) 39.88
Belgium Jupiler 21 (33) 26 (41) 25 (40) 29 (46) 25 (20) 34 (54) 59 (74) 66.66

The Championship doesn’t have any outstanding figures when using the ADJUSTED stats. They do have a “draws” total well in line with the majority of the others in the sample.

SPAIN, La Liga. The total for 2 – 0 is surprisingly low, especially as 2 – 1 is almost double that figure. Do the defences relax when getting a two goal cushion?

ITALY, Serie A. Renown for their tight defensive games, it’s surprising to see them co-leading the 2 – 0 column. Their 0 – 0 total is quite in keeping with the accepted knowledge of the Italian game.

GERMANY, Bundesliga 1. Here the most prolific score is 1 – 1. However closely following on is a score not usually favoured, 1 – 2. This does go against the general trend of the other leagues. There is their liking for a 1 – 1 rather than a scoreless draw.

FRANCE, Division 1. With the reputation for tight games, it is surprising to see so few 0 – 0 games compared to more than double that amount for 1 – 1 results. The overall total of drawn games is well beyond other leagues.
Low scoring games do seem to be the order of the day, however. with a dramatic drop between 2 – 1 and 3 – 1.

PORTUGAL, Liga. The smallest league of the eight we’re looking at. Playing just 204 games in their season. Doesn’t really give a team much scope to redeem themselves if they have a bad start to their season. 1 – 0 and 2 – 1 are the stand-out scores, closely followed by 0 – 0. However, 1 – 0 is by far the best “adjusted” figure for that score amongst our eight leagues.

Netherlands, Eridivision. The “adjusted” figures give a better view of these figures than the bare stats. Whilst the total of the two draw columns are pretty well in line with most of the others, once we reach 3 – 1 the figures become more erratic. Not really a league to employ when trying to forecast match scores. In total, 66 matches had a score in which at least one of the sides scored FOUR or more goals.

BELGIUM, Jupiler. At first the figures don’t appear to be anything special, but take a closer look. They are the most compact of the whole set-up. Their draw figures fit in well with the others, 2 – 0, 2 – 1 and 3 – 1 are a batch well worth considering for any correct score perm. Their overall performance for the six scores is 66.66% of all matches. By far the best performer
here.

I would think that any league with a percentage figure over 51% should be worth consideration when looking for those elusive correct scores. The Portugal Liga, France Division 1 and Belgium’s Jupiler Leagues will be amongst those I’ll be using in the coming season.

The beauty of using more than one league will give the chance to do a little trading as they mostly play on different days.
A chance not to miss.

The real test is, how to use these and earlier stats to our advantage?
A lot depends on the choice of odds you wish to cover. Any home side offered at less than 1.58 (4/7) should be considered very likely to win without conceding. As the odds offered about the favourite lengthens so does the likelihood of them conceding.
Closely matched sides are where the biggest odds are going to be offered over the scoring outcome.
Two recent games had (1) an even money favourite and (2) an odds on favourite. The correct score betting went like this.

Even money favourite. 1 – 0 6/1 Odds-On. (8/11) 1 – 0 5/1
2 – 0 8/1 2 – 0 13/2
2 – 1 15/2 2 – 1 15/2
3 – 0 16/1 3 – 0 12/1
3 – 1 14/1 3 – 1 14/1
0 – 0 9/1 0 – 0 9/1
1 – 1 5/1 1 – 1 6/1
2 – 2 12/1 2 – 2 18/1

These odds show the subtle differences when a side are being offered at odds-on. It is strange that 0 – 0 is quoted at 9/1 for both games. In fact this is very much the “normal” price for this score in the large majority of matches. I do think that the layers are being pretty mean when offering what is virtually a “one size fits all” for a scoreless game. Unless a game looked extremely close to call I’d always be tempted to give 0 – 0 a miss.

Maybe I’ll be able to look at using these stats in a few more ways, in the future.

Remember, bet with caution.