I can't remember a team playing as well as Barcelona are at the moment. It seemed before this game that there was just no way Barcelona wouldn't win this comfortably, despite the fact Depor are possibly the best team outside the top six of Sevilla, Atletico, Real Madrid, Villarreal, Valencia and Barcelona.
When Messi and Eto'o play together up front they are verging on unstoppable, especially at home, as evidenced by their goal difference of +46 at the midway point of the season.
In the 87th minute Deportivo were already 4-0 down having been absolutely hammered, when Puyol burst into the box and was brought down by Depor's keeper Aranzubia. Deportivo had used all their substitutions, which meant that midfielder Juan Rodriguez would have to go in goal for the final three minutes plus injury time.
Eto'o banged in the penalty. After that the situation was as follows; Barcelona were hammering Deportivo, who had ten men, looked utterly demoralised and had an outfield player in goal. You could buy total goal minutes at 284 with one spread betting company, with the so far on 257. This obviously means that you're buying goal minutes at 27 for the rest of the game, when the average goalscoring minute is obviously going to be around 90.
There's a lot of factors to take into consideration when it comes to thinking about whether it's a good bet. Are Barcelona going to care about scoring another? Are the Deportivo players going to try a bit harder to protect their goalkeeper? How much time is the referee going to add on?
Is there any chance they'll score two? Any chance that Barcelona or the referee will be more sympathetic towards Deporitvo? Problem is, you haven't got long to make the decision, so I just went for it, a BUY OF TOTAL GOAL MINUTES AT 284.
Nothing much really happened, one cross went in which the keeper fumbled but held onto. There was a bit of Barca passing the ball around in their own half, and the referee blew up early. Probably not the best decision to make in retrospect but at least there's lessons to be learned, although it's not often you get an outfield player in goal on a game you can place spread bets on in-running.
A more interesting question would be what would happen to the markets if an outfield player had to go in goal in the first minute. How many more goals are the other team going to score? It's a subjective and interesting question and maybe at some stage in the next few years it'll come up.
AR
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