Saturday
Regarding the 3rd place game, it’s generally difficult to score more than three goals in a professional soccer game with two evenly matched teams. There’s a reason the standard line is 2.5 with the exceptions being 2 and 3 (cup games and minnow qualifiers aside). The World Cup 3rd place game however is unique in the sport of soccer. The World Cup is the only full international tournament that contains a third-place game. No club competitions offer one, with UEFA scrapping theirs in 1984. Teams do play for a bronze medal in the Olympics, but the men’s competition is an under-23 tournament with three overage players allowed.
So what does the third place winner at the World Cup receive? If you guessed third place, you would be correct, because otherwise they receive nothing. Netherlands coach Louis Van Gaal has called the game pointless, but wants to win anyway because he’s a professional coach. It’s questionable how much this relates to the players. Brazil is favored, but like Sean I’m much more interested in the total. There hasn’t been a third place game with under three goals since 1974. Since the game doesn’t count for anything and one or both teams are unhappy to be there, the defending can be somewhat relaxed. In 2002, Turkey scored 11 seconds into the game (i.e. faster than Dempsey’s goal). In 1994, Bulgaria had to travel from New York to California and promptly shipped four goals in the first half.
The Pinnacle line has been steadily dropping, so I will likely be on the over 2.5 and 3 but we’ll wait on the teamsheets to come out first. One final note for Sean and everyone else is to use the “will advance” lines for hedging tomorrow and not the 1X2 as the latter covers only regular time and not overtime + shootouts.
One baseball play Braves (Minor) @ Cubs (Jackson) +109
Brazil/Netherlands Over 2.5 & 3 -107
