Deportivo v Villarreal, Primera Liga, 1/2/09

Here's something about my occasional attempts to win money betting on Spanish football matches that aren't shown on TV. One thing that's quite satisfying in betting is finding a bit of team news that other people might not know, then having a bet based on it and winning.

I found out on Friday that Giuseppe Rossi, pictured above, and Rodolfo Bodipo would miss the match between Deportivo v Villarreal. In case you don't know, and I can't see why anyone wouldn't know loads about rubbish bit-part Deportivo players from Equatorial Guinea, Bodipo's one of the very few sources of goals in a dour Deportivo team, and even though his record is generally poor for someone who usually plays alone up front, he'd scored in four successive games recently.

Giuseppe Rossi's a highly-rated striker who used to play for Manchester United and is Villarreal's top scorer this season. Bodipo would be replaced by Riki, who has an even worse record in front of goal, while Rossi would probably be replaced by the Mexican Guille Franco, who's looked out of his depth whenever I've seen him play for Villarreal.

If the two main strikers are out, then the bet you're going to have your eye on is selling total goals, and I was encouraged further by Villarreal's low goals average away from home and recent poor form. One spread betting firm came out 2.6-2.8 on total goals so I SOLD TOTAL GOALS AT 2.6.

DURING THE MATCH

Sure enough, Riki and Franco started up front, but the bet got off to a disastrous start as Lafita, Depor's only other main source of goals, opened the scoring in the 2nd minute. From what I've read Villarreal put a lot of pressure on for the rest of the match but it was Deportivo who got the goals as Lafita added another and then Riki scored in the second half.

Marcos Senna missed a penalty for Villarreal, perhaps the one small bit of vindication for my bet as the first choice man Rossi would have taken it if he'd played, and presumably would have had a better chance of scoring it. The game finished 3-0 and I finished with a slightly annoying 0.4 point loss.

AR