Inter Milan are in action tonight with Leonardo taking charge in a tricky fixture against Napoli.
Three bets which appeal to me tonight and I have taken them in a trixie combination:
I have also doubled up with individual outright bets on Inter and Real Madrid.
If you haven't opened an account yet you can sign up at Sportingbet by clicking HERE or by visiting Voltbet.com
Wow it has been a fascinating World Cup so far and the glamour sides are certainly being given a run for their money by the underdogs. Argentina have surged in the betting following a convincing first fixture while Germany has also shortened. Surprisingly there is still betting support for England...
Here are some of the key events that have shaped week 1 of the tournament:
After a week of soccer here is the updated betting via World Sports Betting:
I have to say USA at 80/1 isn't the worst odds around. They've shown good spirit, been well disciplined through the tournament and been one of the few sides who has been able to bounce back after going down early in a match.
Two weeks back, a much publicised article by Louise Taylor appeared in the online version of the Guardian under the title: “Why going to South Africa for the World Cup terrifies me”
She took some airy stats and promptly trashed our country suggesting that either Egypt or Morocco was a better destination for the World Cup to be staged.
I am not going to give the article any credence with a link but I was impressed by was the number of comments from both South Africans and international visitors highlighting why the article was a load of drivel.
Read the rest of my article here and give me your thoughts....
Sport remains a hugely political tool in South Africa and I think many ordinary people find it frustrating when government officials who haven’t seen a sports field (let alone run on one) start making bold predictions about how they are going to ‘fix’ things.
Upfront, I completely acknowledge that sport was largely divided along racial lines in the past so I don’t deny that there is some merit in the racial arguments.
However the landscape is changing. No side in South African cricket or rugby enjoys the backing of the likes of billionaire Patrice Motsepe. The South African football side is not subjected to selection criteria of local, black coaches or quotas. In fact if one adds up how much the national football side has spent on foreign coaches or advisors over the last decade, it must be a massive figure.
This week has been a case in point about government administrators getting on their high horse and focusing on the wrong aspects of South African sport.
Every few years, sports administrators (typically those with political ties), will get together to hold a sports indaba of sorts where the ‘future strategic direction’ of sport will be covered. Ironically senior figures in cricket, rugby and soccer are normally not invited to give their input.
A hot topic this week has been the future of the Springbok emblem worn by the national rugby team. The politicos it should go because they believe it divides South Africa along racial lines.
The ‘logical decision’ is that it must go to unite South African sport.
Please note that senior rugby administrators and players were not invited to comment at this congress / indaba / conference or whatever they want to call it.
(Bear in mind – nobody actually knows if these guys have any legal backing to the ‘decisions’ that are taken here nor do they enjoy backing of the ruling government party, even if it is convened by some of its more militant members).
Now let’s remember that South African rugby has won 2 World Cups, a Tri-Nations, has a good black coach that is there on merit and has been able to attract an increasingly mixed racial audience to its grounds.
Soccer on the other hand is plumbing new lows. Millions have been spent on foreign coaches, the players themselves are reluctant to play and pick and choose the games they want. The national side is barely competitive with the minnows on the African continent that have budgets probably one fiftieth of what Bafana Bafana enjoys.
The national Olympics team managed a single medal at the 2008 Olympics campaign. We took along more non participating members in our squad than actually athletes, sponsors were disappointed or more interested in sponsoring the Paralympics squad and despite this, the athletes were poorly managed.
Throw in the fact that we have local government departments trying to sell off the land on which grass roots sports clubs operate to make sure that their books balance at the end of the year and the minor issue of a global financial crisis that is robbing all sports disciplines of sponsorship money and we have a pretty grim sports scene.
But no – the priority is to make sure we get rid of a brand that is highly successful, generates a lot of revenue for grass roots sports development.
I think we all agree that sport in South Africa is not perfect, but the meddling of sports officials is somewhat ironic. They talk about wanting to improve sport, but the idea of actually focusing on the problems is something that escapes some people’s agendas.
Posts
All Comments
