Champions League Betting: Arsenal the British value, Cristiano Ronaldo a worthy jolly
As the Champions League knock-out stages get under way next week, Andrew Atherley turns his attentions to the Best of British and top goalscorer markets.
“Layers of Cristiano Ronaldo at 2.1 in the Champions League Top Goalscorer market, and backers of any other player, are taking quite a chance by opposing the Real Madrid star. Essentially, they are betting on Real not progressing much further in the competition, because otherwise Ronaldo has strong claims of finishing as top scorer.”
Barcelona v England has been the story of the Champions League in recent seasons and that’s the way it’s shaping up again.
Holders Barcelona, whose record in the past five seasons is two wins and three knockouts by an English team (two of which went on to lift the trophy), are 4.1 favourites in the Champions League Winner 2009/10 market and, not surprisingly, Chelsea at 5.7, Manchester United at 10.5 and Arsenal 13.5 are serious rivals – the interloper among that group are Real Madrid at 6.2.
One option is to back Barcelona in the Winner 2009/10 market and also back England at 2.78 in the Winning Nation 2009/10 market – that approach would have provided at least one finalist in the past five seasons, with four winners.
Chelsea look the most solid English challengers, but there could be some mileage in opposing them in the Best of British market, where they are 2.04 favourites. History shows that reigning domestic champions find it easier to conquer Europe than teams trying to regain their domestic title (though Barcelona were a notable exception to that rule last season) and Chelsea, a little surprisingly given their solid record, have been Best of British in the Champions League only in 2003-04.
It is difficult to split the three English teams on their Champions League form this season, which usually turns out to be more important than domestic form, and Arsenal could be the value in Best of British at 3.55, as they have the easier-looking draw in the first knockout round, against Porto, and would shorten if Chelsea or Manchester United, who are 3.15 in Best of British, suffer defeat against Milanese opposition.
Layers of Cristiano Ronaldo at 2.1 in the Champions League Top Goalscorer market, and backers of any other player, are taking quite a chance by opposing the Real Madrid star. Essentially, they are betting on Real not progressing much further in the competition, because otherwise Ronaldo has strong claims of finishing as top scorer.
Ronaldo goes into the knockout stage on six goals, two ahead of a trio of players with limited or non-existent chances of catching him – Edin Dzeko of Wolfsburg, already out; Michael Owen, unlikely to feature much for Manchester United; and Milos Krasic of CSKA, who probably won’t last long.
The main dangers to Ronaldo, then, probably lie among the group of players on three goals – notably Chelsea pair Didier Drogba, who is 9.2 to back, and Nicolas Anelka at 16.0. Joint-second favourite at 9.2 is last year’s winner, Lionel Messi, who is on two goals and has a lot of ground to make up on Ronaldo.
That will not be easy in the knockout stage, when the competition becomes much tighter and the opportunity to score a hatful of goals is reduced. The relevant stats are drawn from the six seasons under the current format, and in that period no player has scored more than five goals in the knockout rounds. If Messi matches that, he will move to seven, but that is only one more than Ronaldo’s current total.
The eventual top scorer was leader or joint-leader after the group stage in five of those six seasons and on the two occasions when the leader had six-plus goals by this stage that player went on to win. The stats point to Ronaldo being a cracking bet at 2.08, with the main element of doubt being how far Real will go, because the top scorer has played for a finalist in four of the past six seasons and for the winning team in the past three years.
