Posts Tagged ‘World Cup 2010’

The week ahead, including a World Cup betting blast

It’s Sunday and whether or not you had any luck at Caulfield yesterday, there’s no time to waste; the racing is coming thick and fast now.

Wednesday sees Australia’s top fillies line up for the Thousand Guineas, again at Caulfield, with Irish lights leading the betting, on 3.00 with IASbet. On to Saturday and we’re at Caulfield again for the Caulfield Cup, where Metropolitan winner Speed Gifted is the current favourite, on odds of 5.00 with Centrebet.

As with the Thousand Guineas, I’ll be spending the next few days picking through the hype and gripes surrounding these two races in the hope of steering you in the right direction.

As it’s Sunday today, however, I decided it was time for some light reading in the shape of a scan around the soccer betting markets for World Cup 2010.

Next year’s tournament is in South Africa and a number of big names have already qualified with room to spare, this includes Brazil, who have already won it five times in the past, and Spain, who dazzled with their passing game in winning Euro 2008.

England have also already qualified, as of course have Australia. Also already in the mix are Holland, who had a decent showing themselves at Euro 2008 before being surprisingly knocked out by Russia.

Pretty much everywhere you look at this early stage you find Spain and Brazil rightly out in front. Both have a very good chance next year, with Brazil winning the warm-up Confederations Cup in South Africa early this year. They are on 5.50, level with Spain, at IASbet, for next year.

Bafflingly, behind these two, come England as the 7.00 third favourites. Granted, they did have a good qualification campaign but their win against Croatia to seal the deal last month was against an under-strength side lacking the talents of Luca Modric. As such they have not faced a true test in a competitive match for a while and it’s bizarre that they are rated as more likely to win than Holland, on 12.00 with the same bookmaker.

A word for Russia here. Ok, they do have the odd strange performance but going forward they can be exhilarating and they were unlucky to go out to Spain in the Euro 2008 semi-finals after a very good tournament which saw them beat Holland. 26.00 therefore looks good for them at this stage with IASbet.

Until tomorrow, when I’ll be counting the mental cost of the weekend’s racing.

Tags: Australian Horse Racing, Caulfield, Centrebet, IASbet, South Africa, Thousand Guineas, World Cup 2010, World Cup betting
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