How To Improve Your Soccer Bets Using The Score Prediction Method

How To Improve Your Soccer Bets is a series of articles that describe some well known and well used statistical techniques that will help the soccer punter make more informed bets. Each of the techniques has its own advantages and disadvantages and using them in isolation will improve your chances of winning. However, together they will prove invaluable in your battle with the bookies. In each article we will describe in detail how a particular method works giving you enough information for you to go ahead and create your own forecasts. We will also give you information as to where you can already find websites that use this technique in comprising their weekly forecasts.

The statistical methods described in this set of articles will help you to arrive at a better decision about the match, or matches, that you are betting on.

In this article we will be describing the well known Score Prediction method. The Score Prediction method uses a teams goal performances over a specified period of time in order to predict the score of the game concerned.

Here are the basic rules?
As an example of the Score Prediction method this is how Footyforecast and 1X2Monster handle this method. This is an example of a match and each teams respective goal count for the last five games:

home team 3-3 1-0 4-1 0-2 2-1
away team 0-1 2-2 0-3 6-0 1-3

We can work out some figures from this as follows:

home teams goals scored for = HGF = 3 + 1 + 4 + 0 + 2 = 10
away teams goals scored for = AGF = 1 + 2 + 3 + 0 + 3 = 9
home teams goals against = HGA = 3 + 0 + 1 + 2 + 1 = 7
away teams goals against = AGA = 0 + 2 + 0 + 6 + 1 = 9

Now we can work out points for each team based on the goals they have scored and the goals they have had scored against them as follows:

home goal points = HGP = HGF + AGA = 10 + 9 = 19
away goals points = AGP = HGA + AGF = 7 + 9 = 16

And now we can get a difference:
goal points difference = GPD = HGP - AGP = 19 - 16 = 3

Now we could classify this as follows:
GPD => +2 then home win,
GPD =< -2 then away win
GPD -2 then draw.

These parameters are obviously fairly arbitrary but experience should allow you to tune them more carefully.

Now we must use the GPD and one of three tables.
Here are the tables...

Home WIn Score Prediction
HOME AWAY
HGSP GOALS AGSP >0 >11 >17 >26
>49.....6............0....1....2....3
>43.....5............0....1....2....3
>37.....4............0....1....2....3
>30.....3............0....1....2
>23.....2............0....1
>0.......1............0

Away WIn Score Prediction
AWAY HOME
AGSP GOALS HGSP >23 >18 >13 >0
>34.....5............3....2....1....0
>29.....4............3....2....1....0
>24.....3..................2....1....0
>18.....2..................2....1....0
>0.......1..................2....1....0

Draw Score Prediction
HOME + AWAY SCORE
....>44.........3-3
....>34.........2-2
....>24.........1-1
....>0...........0-0

Since our match has generated a home win prediction then we must use the HOME WIN SCORE PREDICTION table to obtain our score prediction. To do this we need to calculate another parameter, that of home goal score points as follows:

HGSP = HGP + all goals scored by home team of 3 or more in a match + all goals against the away side of 3 or more.

therefore HGSP = 19 + 7 + 6 = 32

Now do the same for the away team:

AGSP = AGP + all goals scored by away team of 3 or more in a match + all goals against the home side of 3 or more.

therefore AGSP = 16 + 6 + 3 = 25

So, in the home win score prediction table we go to HOME > 30 which gives us 3 goals for the home team and go to AWAY > 17 giving us two goals for the away team therefore the result is predicted as a 3-2 home win.

Now it?s your turn?

Of course you may choose to use different values to those shown above and by experimenting you may come up with better values to use.

If you have the necessary skills you could go away and build your own spreadsheet of data or even write a piece of software to take in results and fixtures and apply the Score Prediction method to your data. Or, if you?re lazy like me, you could grab some free software that already does this for you. If this last option is for you then visit 1X2Monster where you can download a FREE copy of the Footyforecast 2.0 software which utilises all of the statistical methods described in this series of articles. You will also be able to download FREE weekly database updates for your software, how cool is that?

Here is a list of all the articles in this series?

How To Improve Your Soccer Bets Using The Rateform Method
How To Improve Your Soccer Bets Using The Footyforecast Method
How To Improve Your Soccer Bets Using The Win Draw Loss Method
How To Improve Your Soccer Bets Using The Simple Sequence Method
How To Improve Your Soccer Bets Using The Score Prediction Method
How To Improve Your Soccer Bets Using The Superiority Method

Malcolm Nossiter is the owner of 1x2monster.com and footyforecast.com. He has been providing hundreds of 1X2 tips every week since 1999. Please visit 1x2monster.com for a fountain of information on soccer betting.

Soccer Rules-Fouls- Tackling

While most acts on a soccer field are fouls only by degree, a few acts, however, are deemed fouls whenever they take place?regardless of how or why they occur. One such act occurs through the clumsy use of the feet during an attempt to win it away from the other side. A ?tackle? occurs when one player takes the ball away from the other by using the feet. A ?foul tackle? occurs when that player tackles the opponent, rather than the ball.

Tackling the opponent instead of the ball
Soccer involves a struggle for the ball, and an attempt by both teams to put it into the other team?s goal. As a result, players are constantly challenging each other for custody, and using their heads, feet, and bodies to win it. One of the quickest, and most direct ways for a player to take it away from an opposing player will be to tackle for possession with his feet.

Since cleats are hard, and the ball is soft and filled with air, the ball acts as a natural cushion during these contests. This, in turn, helps keep everyone safe and uninjured. As a result, ?fair tackles? are those in which a player contacts the ball first, before making any contact with the opponent. By contrast, a tackle which first makes contact with the opponent before touching the ball can wreak havoc various parts of the opposing player?s body?including the feet, the shins, the ankles, the calves, and anyplace that is within range of a misplaced foot. Doing so rsults in a a foul tackle, which is punished by a direct free kick.

Though a common excuse among players is that they ?got the ball,? the mere fact that they did, in fact, contact the ball first does not end the matter. While perhaps not a ?tackling? foul, tackles committed carelessly, recklessly, or with excessive force may still constitute the separate fouls of kicking, tripping, charging, or striking.

Jeffrey Caminsky, a veteran public prosecutor in Michigan, specializes in the appellate practice of criminal law and writes on a wide range of topics. Both his science fiction adventure novel The Star Dancers, the first volume in the Guardians of Peace (tm) science fiction adventure series, and The Referee?s Survival Guide, a book on soccer officiating, are published by New Alexandria Press, http://www.newalexandriapress.com.