This match was always going to be a big showcase for Cristiano Ronaldo. He's FIFA's golden boy after deservedly winning their Ballon d'Or recently, and before this game in Japan he was getting even more attention than usual.
This was a day on which rumours of a possible move to Real Madrid intensified, and it might just have been my imagination, but I thought he looked a bit disinterested for parts of this match. Nevertheless, the absence of Wayne Rooney and Dimitar Berbatov meant that he would be taking on more responsibility than usual in terms of getting into forward positions, and on this basis I had a small BUY OF HIS GOAL MINUTES AT 29.
He did score, a header from a corner just before half time, but the interesting period in this game from a spread betting point of view was the last fifteen minutes. In the 74th minute, United were 2-0 up and the game looked like it was dying a bit. In fact, I was thinking of backing Under 2.5 goals on the fixed odds spreads, but how wrong I was.
Gamba scored in the 74th, 84th and 90th minutes, while United scored in the 75th, 78th and 79th minutes. This meant that the total goal minutes quote went up 480 points in that period of time, which would have been an unprecedented jackpot for any buyers of Total Goal Minutes, and equally ghastly for sellers - a good example of the sudden ups and downs one can experience in spread betting.
AR
Comments