This Spanish cup match was being shown straight after Valencia v Racing on Sky Sports, but because the Valencia match went to extra time, I couldn't watch the first twenty minutes of the Barca match.
The tie was interestingly poised, with Barca having won 3-1 away from home in the first leg from a Messi hat-trick. With the away goals rule, this meant Atletico would have to come to the Nou Camp and score three times, but given the weak line-up the Catalan side had put out, I didn't think that was impossible.
Atletico had a strong team out, although they decided to rest Diego Forlan for this game - Spanish clubs have never taken the Copa Del Rey particularly seriously, sadly it looks like the FA Cup is going the same way, but I'll save my rant about mid-table teams resting players in the cups for another day.
No spread betting firms were quoting anything for the first twenty minutes, but once the Valencia extra time was finished Sky put the Barcelona match on, midway through the first half with Atletico one-nil up. I thought that this might be an opportunity to catch one of the spread firms out, as their prices would surely be more likely to be erroneous if they hadn't watched any of the first twenty minutes.
One price caught my eye - Atletico team corners. They hadn't got any so far, but they looked like they were going to have a real go at Barca and try and get the two further goals they needed to go through. The quote on Atletico team corners after forty minutes was 1.5-2, I thought that was too low so BOUGHT ATLETICO CORNERS AT 2.
They got a couple of corners quickly to put me well onside with the bet. Barcelona scored fairly soon afterwards, but that shouldn't in theory have made much difference to the shape of the game - Atletico needed two goals beforehand and still needed two after that goal.
Football doesn't really work like that though, and you could see Atletico starting to give up in the second half, especially when their best player Aguero went off with cramp, with no striker (such as Forlan) on the bench to replace him. They ended up with five corners - definitely a good bet that won well but perhaps a missed opportunity for a big make-up.
AR
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