World of Wagers: A Swedish surprise and Swiss goals rolling

Each week, our new football data contributor Felix Morson-Pate (@FelixPateLGOP) takes a deep dive into some of football's lesser-covered leagues in his World of Wagers column.

Father time stands still for no one, and the European league seasons march on towards the home stretch in May (bar a handful of summer leagues).

There’s not many weeks left to extract the last drops of value from some of the more exotic competitions across the continent, so lets get straight into it.

Before we get into our selections this week, though, I’ll again focus on a factor that is crucial to consider when betting at this stage of the season; injuries.

It’s of course well known that if someone like Erling Haaland, Lamine Yamal or Jamal Musiala is confirmed to be out, then a betting market will adjust swiftly and sharply to correct for this information, as their team’s chances of winning, scoring and many other things are altered without these players. However, the market barely registers if a star striker in the Italian 2nd division is suspended for 3 weeks.

In fact, for those leagues where you can bet on goalscorers lower down the pyramid, the bookmakers often leave confirmed non-runners in the betting. The information is very much out there on nearly every league in the world, particularly on sites like Transfermarkt.

Therefore, if you can find a way to assess the difference in probability of a team winning with a starter vs a backup, you’ll go a long way to finding some excellent value in the tiers below the elite football.

Selection #1 - Fortuna Dusseldorf to beat Preussen Munster - 2.00 (William Hill/Betfair)

Despite coming into this game in slightly worse form over the last three or four games, I think even money about a Dusseldorf win is a very fair price here.

Whilst they’re having a disappointing campaign after the agony of a play off defeat last term, my underlying ratings (and indeed much of the market implied ratings) suggest that they’re a class above their opponents here.

Take heed with what I said above with injuries, as their absentees would be enough to put some off backing them here, but with one of the league’s deepest squads, and plenty of first-team quality players still available, it shouldn’t affect them nearly as much as it would most sides at this level.

Selection #2 - Sirius +0.5 AH vs Djurgardens - 1.85 (MGM/Unibet)

For those less expose to Asian handicap betting, this is essentially betting the ‘double chance’ market, so our bet will win so long as Sirius avoid defeat here.

It’s still very early in the Swedish season, which means the market is taking its time to adjust and we have to rely on a little more long-term form and trends here.

The other key point that makes me want to get against Djurgardens here, aside from me making this contest more or less a pick-em, is their huge midweek clash with Rapid Vienna in the Conference League quarterfinals.

That offers a huge chance for them to progress to a European semi final (where there’s a strong likelihood they set up a glamour tie with Chelsea), so with one eye – if not both – on Thursday’s clash, there’s more than enough juice here for me to essentially lay them to win.

Selection #3 - BTTS and over 2.5 St Gallen vs Servette - 2.56 (Betfair)

This is another case of me making the games closer to a 50/50 clash and the market has reacted accordingly, nipping St Gallen in a touch over the last couple of days.

It’s made me look for an alternative angle, and the straight BTTS price (1.53) was a bit short to stomach, so coupling it with over 2.5 goals seemed the obvious ploy.

I’m expecting a competitive game despite the rather large gap in the table at present, so whilst I still would make Servette the likeliest winners, St Gallen have more about them than their points total suggests (at least on my numbers) to make a game of things here.

A very small play on the 1-3 correct score may also be worth a look.