June 19, 2020 • 53 mins
Martino Puccio and Davis Mattek are back to discuss some of the top matches from this past weekend with Napoli winning Coppa Italia and Manchester City defeating Arsenal 3-0. Plus top matchups to come in Germany this weekend as well!
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
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Enjoy the show and thanks so much for listening. Hello everybody,
(00:25):
and welcome on into the Free Kick. On this Saturday morning,
on Martino Puccio joined alongside me is Davis Mattock Davis,
how you doing, I'm doing. I'm doing great, Martino. It's uh,
I mean it's great. We have everything sports are I
mean not sports, but but football football is back, right,
We got we got the EPL. We got to see
David Louise make, you know, a horrendous mistake that really,
(00:49):
you know, made me feel like the world was was
returning to normal. Yeah. No, and that was something that
we talked about last show on how how he terrifies
me at the back. Then sure enough, he didn't even
start the game. He comes on, makes that era that
led to the Sterling goal and then gets a red
card and basically Arsenal had no chance whatsoever. That game
(01:11):
really could have gotten a lot more out of hand
than I thought. Three nothing was kind of generous for
the way that Arsenal played. It could have easily been
five six nothing. UM City unfortunately didn't get to finish
off some of the chances that they had. You could
see some of the rust actually in the first half
for sure, UM, But the chances were there. So that's
good if they if they just figure out, you know,
like another pass or two. It's really not about the finishing.
(01:33):
A lot of people usually believe that it has to
do with the finishing on the shots. It's really just
kind of those last few touches and passes UM in
the final third that kind of leads to those goals.
It's not so much the shooting. Um, So what did
you think that? I mean, nothing really surprised us there.
We know the line was kind of right around the
total for three and a half. They hit under there.
(01:54):
But I mean it's not the worst being in the world,
considering that you could expect some answers to be missed
in the first game back. Yeah, so the line, you know,
the approach that I took to that game is I
just bet I bet City on the spread. Uh, so
they were going a half favorites and I actually, you know,
I really like to try and bet games early to
(02:15):
get good numbers. But that Arsenal lineup, man, it was
it was like it was like they thought it was
a Europa League game or something. So, you know, the
lineup that Arsenal runs out, they move Bakery Soccer up
to left wing as opposed to left back, where he'd been,
you know, kind of more comfortable. And actually I thought
(02:36):
he'd played tremendous there. I thought this was something good
that Arsenal was doing, you know, moving moving Soccer who
is a more creative player and having him play defensive
and that, you know, that kind of gives them more
options going forward. So I think maybe the thought there was, okay,
if we play him up a little bit more forward,
it'll be a little bit easier for us to stop
(02:57):
the counter attacks from Manchester City. So I didn't think
that was great to begin with. They play in the midfield,
They play Joe Willock who is twenty, They play Matteo
Gwendozy who is twenty two, and they play Eddie and
Kettia instead of Alexander Lacazette and Ketia is nineteen. I
mean this this lineup, it was I just there was
(03:21):
no way they could have thought they would have won
the game. It's exactly. But the funny thing is that
they actually do have a chance, Like you have to
give yourself a chance when you're coming back from a
break like this, right, like we've seen all bets are
off in in most instances that teams could really compete
or even get a point out of out of this situation,
and it kind of just it blows my mind on
(03:42):
what Arsenal is doing here. Maybe they're experimenting these last
few games to see who they really want to keep
in terms of youngsters, if they want to loan some
of them out. But they have a chance at the
Europa League spot, like they should still be gunning for that.
I don't know why, but no pun intended there. They
should still be going for that. I don't understand where
they were coming from with this approach here. And for City,
(04:02):
I mean, look, this is it's huge when a team
like that just lies down because the closer they get
to finishing in second is better for them. If they
potentially win an appeal for the Champions League to get
to play in it next year because that affects the
pot that they're in and and that's always something important
because for for the average American over here that doesn't
watch that often, they it's good to know that there's
(04:23):
a lot more to play for than just a title.
And that's kind of what happened. And a team that
is playing for another Europa League spot of Sheffield United
and they got dropped. I mean, there's there's no doubt
about it. I don't think I've seen any That's probably
one of the most egregious calls I've seen in a while,
maybe when the Saints got screwed in the NFC Championship
(04:43):
game something I could recall at the top of my
head as of recent Um. Yeah, Aston Villa's goalkeeper was
literally in the net, falling down in the net with
the ball. You could clearly see it over the line.
This wasn't a bar issue. This was a goal line
technology issue. Going technology usually sends it straight to the
ref um to his watch that he has when they're
playing the game. Apparently they said it wasn't working and
(05:04):
then they couldn't get anything with var to help them
out there, and again in zero zero. So that was
interesting is I guess that in the event that the
goal line technology doesn't work, there's not um a step,
there's like there's not a way to intervene inside the
rules with bar, which is um you know, I mean,
I guess, I guess it. It just really sucks for Rough.
(05:26):
It really sucks for them to be in that situation,
especially for a team who doesn't score a lot, and
Villa is a very poor side. So the fact that
you only get one point out of that game, I mean,
it's so disappointing, and it's really funny how it just
took like what the first half of the first game
back for something so bad to happen. Um. I mean,
it didn't really affect a lot of people who had
(05:46):
the under because the under was like everyone was hammering
like two and a half in this because no one
really expected anything crazy to go with that. So at
least people still want in that regard. But if you
did have Sheffield in a money line parlay, um, unfortunately
that didn't go well for you there. But uh man,
look it's it's it's really fascinating to see how all
(06:07):
this is going down. Um so cope it Tally, I
wanted to talk about it, right, So we talked about
it last week and we we didn't really get to
watch and cap the hu a Melon game that happened before. Then.
Cuvent just look terrible in that matchup. I think they
got outplayed, especially when they were facing a man down.
There was really no excuses there. They advanced on the
(06:28):
away goals because they tied one one in the first leg,
so they were fortunate enough there because otherwise it would
have gone straight to penalties, and who knows what happens. Look,
Ronaldo looked terrible. UM. A bunch of their players in
their midfield looked poor. UM. Their defense was solid obviously.
UM that that kind of was the main theme for
these couple of games for Cope. It tally same thing
(06:48):
with like Internnapoli too. It was just a one one game.
Then the final comes along zero zero draw, goes to
penalties Napoli when Buffon made some crazy saves right in
the minute um to just basically further cement why he's
the greatest of all time there um, and then they
lose and it's just you know, it's it's funny because
of the whole themes and it's already faces Napoli, his
(07:11):
former team that he left for Juventus. We know how
how angry all the fans get in terms of that
and how he left there. He never won a trophy
at Napoli and he ends up losing to them, and
he still doesn't have a trophy in Italy by the way,
which is like bizarre. His first one was the Europa
League with Chelsea and he's like sixty something years old.
He's a crazy story on how he used to be
an investment banker and then he left to go coach
(07:33):
a third division team in Italy. CUBID did not look
good at all. I think they by far, out of
all the four teams that played, they look the worst.
And you have to maybe give him the benefit of
the doubt, like we say, because they win the league
all the time. But man only a one point lead
and they're playing like this, I'm not sure it's as
safe as they think it is with twelve games left. Well,
(07:53):
I mean I think that you know, you've a you
can you can look at some of their players and
you can be like, well, you know, Ron getting a
little older probably is weird for you know, it's weird
for a guy what Ron is thirty four years old,
and two you're used to him being out wide and
they're still not completely used to this system. Yeah, so
(08:14):
I think you can look at him and be like,
he probably has such a meticulous fitness routine and such
a meticulous routine of you know, keeping his body in
top shape that you know, taking those three months off
was probably really hard for him, both in terms of
staying motivated and keeping his body where he wants it
to be at. So, you know, not surprising for him
to have, you know that that difficult of the game.
(08:35):
You know, in that in this sum in this Coppa
Teli final, they play Danillo up top basically you know,
kind of having him play next to Debola and Ronaldo,
which is you know, they do that so that Incinia
doesn't have as much room to move and they can
basically have two guys dedicated to keeping in Sennia from
cutting inside onto his uh, you know, onto his right foot.
(08:56):
But I mean, just you know, if I'm if I'm
thinking about tactical to decisions, I would so much rather
play Bernardeski out there as opposed to shunting him back
in the midfield, because you need, you need to be
able to cross the ball in nern You don't you
don't want you don't want him always with the ball
at his feet. So I I thought that was pretty
a pretty bad decision. Yeah, and it really didn't make
(09:18):
a lot of sense. Even those substitutes that Sary was making.
It was just weird. He was bringing Kader on Bernardeski
and I think Ramsey at one point too. It was
just it doesn't seem like everyone understands where they're supposed
to be playing. There's no continuity there, and in the
creativity aspect, like they weren't getting good looks. There was
a couple of chances within the second half that they
(09:40):
had some decent looks to get something off. But at
the end of the day, I look, it's just when
you don't score any goals over a hundred and eighty
minutes UM. And then even the penalties were a disaster too.
They only scored one or two of them. Danielo skuided
way over the net, Dibola got his saved. UM. It
was really just demoralizing for them. So, I mean, because
(10:04):
they're they're already down one nothing to leone in the
Champions League, there's a lot of added pressure to them
because they know this whole Cristiano Ronaldo signing is all
about the Champions League and winning lots of trophies, and
it kind of just feels like they're wasting him at
this point, almost similar to what Lebron was like for
the Lakers in their first year. Well and they I mean,
you know, there is real pressure from like a financial
(10:27):
perspective too, because they owe raw and so much money.
They owe him a lot of money for a long
time and unless they, you know, convince him to go
to the MLS or two PSG or something like they
need that Champions League money or that contract, is like
a disaster for you as an organization. Yeah, I think
you're exactly right, because at the end of the day,
(10:47):
you're kind of looking down, um the end of the line,
and you're kind of like, Okay, are we gonna have
to make a decision where we're gonna have to fire
our coach immediately and have a third one in three
years or we have to somewhat get rid of Christiano
ron All. Don't just hit reset on this whole thing,
because as of right now, like if they're not winning
the Champions League, they somehow lose this title race, they
go trophy list. That's very embarrassing for them. Um and
(11:11):
even if I understand they've been winning for so many
years now, at the end of the day, you cannot
waste one of the greatest players of all time, especially
in a in a league that still isn't up to
the standards that it used to be. And the fact
that they continue to struggle here and it didn't look
like it did any good for them to, you know,
kind of get that chemistry back up, because we know
(11:31):
how rough Napoli season has been. They righted the ship
and they ended up winning the trophy. As for Huve, now,
it's so much pressure there and it's kind of like
where did they focus their attention on because they still
have a few weeks too before the change. I mean,
they could lose the league. They could at this point,
they could lose the leaguelat SEO pretty easily if they
keep playing like this. Yeah, and and the thing is
(11:51):
with Latsio two, they really don't have to worry about
that much. I mean, it's they got eliminated from the
cop They just have these twelve matches to play out. Everybody,
for the most part, is healthy they've had really good chemistry,
they've been playing together for years now, and it's and
it's just one of those things that like, hey, I
think this might be a realistic thing to talk about,
but who knows, maybe this this weekend, once we start
(12:12):
talking again next show, you may end up winning like
three to nothing and Lazio slip up and drop all
three points and then Huba has a four point lead
and then just kind of like, okay, do we see
huve really blown a four point lead over this stretch.
But honestly, I think it might potentially be a conversation
worth having so insane that are you now changing your
mind and potentially just jumping on Lazio at this point
(12:33):
and getting this better now? Because if you may do
lose this weekend and Lacio win, Lancio goes in first,
and then those adds change, not drastically but a healthy amount. Yeah.
I mean, I I really like the idea of taking
Latsio at plus two fifty right now and just you know,
seeing seeing what we have, you know in terms of
you know, in terms of uh, you may just not
(12:55):
being able to play that well. I I really like it. Yeah,
And it's definitely earth of value at that point, and
even sticking with you right too right, I mean minus
to forty, there's not much value in that whatsoever. So
it's something to stay back on. And then even if
you do like them, after they lose and the odds change,
just take them then if it's minus one seventy or
something like that. But when we come back, we're gonna
(13:16):
be talking about some of the other Champions League topics.
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sports grid dot Com. Alright, everybody, welcome back into the
(13:44):
free kick. La Liga kicked off again at last week.
There's gonna be a ton more fixtures to get into
later in the show. But first, Davis, we just want
to talk about some of the matchups that took place
over the weekend. Real Madrid looked amazing. Barcelona and Messy,
I mean well Messy for the most part, didn't look
like he uh he missed a step whatsoever, um scoring
(14:05):
a couple of times. He also got football tackle. By
the way, I don't know if you saw that by
Leganiss captain Um in the midweek fixture, no red card.
They just gave him a yellow. What's your opinion on that,
by the way, because for me, like, if you're making
an actual like NFL tackle in a soccer game, that
should be a red card. I mean, you know, I'm
(14:26):
kind of I grew up. I grew up watching American sports,
watching tackle football everything, so I you know, I don't
I don't mind. Uh, I don't mind if every once
in a while we get we get a little bit
of rough out there and we only throw we only
throw yellow cards. I kind of think. I kind of
think it adds a little bit of something to the game.
But obviously, you know, especially when it's a messy, gotta
protect messy, right yeah, I know. Yeah, the holy even
(14:49):
even La Liga's president, which would like it's the equivalent
of the commissioner of the of the league, was saying
today on how Messi's better because he didn't leave to
go to Juventus like Christiano did, so he threw some
shade out in there. So you know, the sentiments that
go towards Messi and that League for sure. And he's
(15:09):
one goal shy I believe of his seven career goal
which is just absolutely insane. I mean just factoring in
all the assists that he has piled up as well.
I mean, the records just keep coming for him. He's
such a joy to watch and and one of the
guys that um is probably one of the best teenagers
they've had since Messi is on Sufati. I mean, that
(15:30):
finished that he had in that game midweek was just fantastic.
And did you have him in a DFS lineup because
I know he's somebody you were kind of looking forward
to with this restart going on, Yeah, for sure. I have.
I have a criticism to to Lever though on Barcelona,
which is Antoine Griesman is useless for them. I mean
(15:51):
it's like it's like he doesn't know, he doesn't know.
And and actually, by the way, the same thing was
true with Philippe Continuo. And I don't know who's faulted.
Is my guess is it's probably the organization's faults. Yeah,
I don't. I don't think it's the fault of the player.
But when you play with a guy as great as Messy,
I think and you were the man before, like you
(16:12):
were the best player on you were you were, um,
the best player on your team before. I think it's
very hard to know, Okay, when should I be aggressive?
When should I be shooting? When should I be distributing?
Should my teammates be trying to get me the ball
in the midfield? You know, should I be trying to
get them the ball? And um, and and maybe you
could say it's a language barrier type thing. You know,
(16:35):
there's a lot of different reasons for it. But Griesman
on Barcelona is no doubt. Like I, I literally think
they could go get on dress as R right now.
They could get they could get him back from Qatar,
and I think that he would do the exact same
job that Griesman is doing. See, this is what I
was saying months ago on this show to Chelsea Cabarcus,
who is who's the other host for this and um,
(16:56):
she does a lot of a lot of legas stuff
and works with the league and everything, so she's that
I was being too harsh. I'm just saying, look, if
you're at his age and his prime getting paid that
money with that transfer fee coming over from Athletic, go
and winning almost every single big prize possible. Even with France.
He's plays with a lot of great players there too.
It's not like he hasn't played with a loaded ross
(17:16):
there before, like he's he is actually useless. That's not
even that's not even an exaggeration, and he's not also
the first one you mentioned Coutino to and think about
dem Bell as well. They spent over three hundred almost
four hundred million euros on three guys and you could
argue all of them are flops. They're all terrible and
they've wasted all this money. They have financial fair play
(17:37):
issues too. Messy's not getting any younger, and you're just
sitting there to yourself saying, how much longer can they
ride the cotail of this? Because as of right now
they're basically becoming the Cleveland Cavaliers with Lebron James that
it's just strictly Lebron and he's making everybody a lot better.
There might be some talent around, but they don't play
as well together as a team as you would have
liked them to have to. Look, uh, they're still ahead,
(18:00):
they're still in first. Real Madrid has to play their
midweek game as well. I don't know. I think the
future outlook is not great for them because we don't
know what's happening with Suarez. Their signings like Frankie Deyong
isn't hasn't even gone back and played as well as
they would have liked too. They're just frustrating and I
(18:21):
don't roof for them. I don't like them on on
particularly a high level. It's just it's just frustrating to
see a talented player like that wasted when he could
clearly be the best player in the world on any
given day. Still, yeah, I I completely agree with you,
um and it's and it's just always frustrating because of
(18:41):
the way that these Spanish organizations are run is there
are different people with different motivations, all making decisions. You know,
the managers are going to have different desires than the
technical director, and the people voting for club president and
technical director have their own ideas, and then obviously Messi
has his own idea of you know, who he wants
to play with, who he wants to manage, and you know,
(19:03):
I'm sure I'm sure he wanted to play with Antoine Griesman,
but you know, didn't really think of like, oh, yeah,
I want to play with other talented players. But are
me and Griesman really that good of a fit. And
the answer is no, because they really are very similar
style players to you know, theoretically, they both kind of
play that center forward position, that that false nine where
you bring other players into the attack as opposed to
(19:26):
you know, just being a pure lethal finisher like Suarez
is a great partner for Messy, and if Griesman was
as good as Nymar, he would be a better partner.
But Naymar was so so good, and I actually think
maybe what made Nymar so good was that he did
not care what Messi thought, He didn't care what the
(19:46):
fans thought. He was like, I want to score goals,
I want to cross the ball, like I want to
go do all this. I want to go be the man.
And maybe Griesman wants to be the man. Maybe Gusman
should want to be the man a little bit more. Yeah,
I think so. There was always that kind of thought
on him where he was a little bit like James Harden,
one of the best players in the world, really stepped
(20:09):
up weekend week out, really got his team deep and
competing for potentially a title, and he just you know,
they lost those couple of finals against Real Madrid. They
lost the Euro Final against Portugal when they should have
won that match when Ronaldo left um with the injury.
They end up winning the World clock Cup, so that
stigma got removed a little bit. But then he makes
(20:31):
this move over to Barcelona. I mean, it's really it's
like really bad, and it's not really talked about enough
because of the amount of money that they spend. And
even then, they're still looking to get Lataro Martinez over
from inter and not trying to figure out their other
holes and issues that they have because their defense isn't
that right. I think they can improve in their fullback situations.
(20:52):
It's like racket Titch and vidollarg is racking up these
high wage bills and they're not using them as often
as they should. They don't know who to put on
the left side, And you're right, it's just at at
this point, the best compliment for Messi is Suarez, and
Suarez is maybe gone soon. And also Messi hasn't extended
that contract beyond this season the next season, so it's
(21:12):
technically still up. It's gonna be difficult to see him
leave there. But I mean at a certain point that
you would think if things are going so well over there,
that he would have resigned by now, right, Yeah, and
I mean he does like to. I mean, he should
obviously want to keep that leverage over Barcelona, you know
he doesn't. He shouldn't want to give them too much
(21:33):
before they are willing to give him more, right, yeah,
and and so he and and that's you know, it's
important to keep that. But also, I mean, wouldn't it
wouldn't it be kind of fun to see Messi, you know,
play for Chelsea or United or or or maybe even
you know ps G would give him anything in guitar?
Would they would give him anything? The MLS would? You know,
they just whatever he wanted, They would give Messy billions
(21:56):
to play for them. He would it would it would,
honestly be I would love to see it, just to
see what happened, you know, kind of like a free
agent thing, like Ronaldo still had to get transferred over
from Real Madrid. You know that that was a negotiation
with the club. It wasn't just Cristiano has his pickings
of where he wants to go. Well technically still does,
because you know, like it didn't matter if you know,
United offer two hundred million, Cristiano doesn't want to go there.
(22:17):
He doesn't want to go there. That's kind of part.
It's not like a trade in our professional sports, just
for people who don't really know how the transperceism works.
It has to be an agreement between It's like a
no trade clause for every player for the most part,
but some players have more leverage than the others. Um yeah,
I mean, I don't know. I think I think the
coolest place maybe be at City Reunited with pet I
(22:39):
wou'd be fun because it was a lot of people
that are always like, he can't score and do what
he did in the Premier League anywhere else, not Like
he absolutely has scored like a ton of goals against
all those top Premier League teams in the Champions League
right where he basically single handedly had had it in
the bag against Liverpool. But it's none of his teammates
could have helped him out last year. So I mean
that that'll be fascinating to see as well. Um, so
(23:00):
Real Madrid looked really good with his art over the weekend.
Um he finally healthy, right, and that's something that really matters, Right,
that's one of the ten best players in the world
that didn't really do much or play a lot, kind
of like griesman um with his output in performance. But
if Real Madrid have this version of Hazard, I think
(23:22):
they're almost a lot to win this league, especially like
the opportunity that bus I have, Like they could easily
drop points here, Like it's not it's not out of
the realm of possibility. Yeah no, I I um, I
agree with that. I I when we did our show
last week and we were talking about the restart, I said,
you know, I just I think that this was a
better time off for Real Madrid. I think that I
(23:45):
think that they were going to be able to do
more with the time off and they had the unknown
of edon Hazard and even Rodrigo and Vanisius Jr. Like
those guys. You know, we we think about those young
guys like they had time to practice, they had time
to think about their skill sets, Like every day Rodrigo
and Venitius Junior get like point zero three percent better
(24:06):
because they're they're so young. They're these guys are are
teenagers and they have more time to refine their skill
sets and get more experience and training. So I I yeah,
I do think Madrid does end up winning um well Liga. Yeah,
And and it's just crazy because again you're right, I
totally agree with how how much they get better in
that times man, because when you play a lot, you
(24:29):
get kind of get thrown into the deep end, thrown
to the wolves, and it kind of can be a
lot at once, but you're still playing. You get a
nice like break kind of kind of like when tennis
players sometimes they're having a rough day but they get
bailed out because of a rain out. They restart, you know,
take it like go to bed, wake up, it's a
new day. Things get are completely different. You have a
(24:50):
different mentality than you did twenty four hours ago. Like
think about how much more different their mentality is three
months later. Like like they consumed every he thought, every
play that they had, Like they could watch replays of
what they were doing wrong, what they were doing correct,
training at home, honing their skills. I mean, there's just
so many benefits to them, and especially with that young squat.
(25:11):
And it's funny too because you don't see that happen
with Barsa maybe on Sufat he is the only one
that we've seen so far. But I mean, I mean,
they're really scary because it's not about Real Madrid this year.
I think it could be a changing of the guard
for a few years now with La Liga, let alone
everything else. Yeah, no, I'm I'm I'm totally with you,
and I just think it's gonna be. It's just gonna be.
(25:33):
It's gonna be really awesome to watch it all play out.
And maybe maybe this um, this competition drives Griesman to
be the best version of himself, which would be you know,
good for good for all of us, because he is
an awesome player to watch when he's on on top four.
Silver lining could be that his price drops on dfs
and then you could just keep plugging him in and
(25:54):
then hopefully he gives you the return that you've been
hoping for so many weeks that you wasted on him.
Um some some other smaller news in law Lega before
we had to break here, Cavani heading to Athletico Madrid.
Most likely he won't be renewing with PSG PSG getting
rid of a few players. Thiago Silva was another one.
Cavani a good fit. How how long do you think
that would really last? I think it's a great fit
(26:15):
for them. Mom if he agrees, Yeah, good fit because
Joel Felix more of a creative player, less of a finisher.
So I yeah, I like that quite a bit. Yeah,
and he scored a great goal as well. It's good
to see him healthy and progressing as well. He's such
a talented player. But when we come back, we're gonna
be talking about the decisions that you Wave have made
in terms of the Champions League, and we'll look at
some future odds. Sports grid dot com betting insights and
(26:39):
entertainment at your fingertips seven as our team covers the
most important topics in sports wagering, real time odds, predictive
betting models, expert picks, and more. Want the edge than
get on the grid sports grid dot com. This is
(27:04):
sports grade. Hello everybody, welcome back into the Free Kick.
Here Martino Puccio and Davis Maddick breaking down some of
the top leagues and tournaments. Davis, we're gonna get into
the biggest tournament of them all. The Champions League officially
(27:26):
announced back eight teams will be heading to Lisbon once
the Round of sixteen wraps up. Quarterfinals, semifinals, and the
final all gonna be their quarterfinals and semi's are gonna
be single game elimination. No two legs to worry about,
no dreaded away goals that I hate so much that
you have to factor in when you're placing your bets, Davis,
(27:48):
or you were a fan of this, this was probably
one of the more logistical ways that you could have gone,
giving the circumstances in this Uh, I'm really excited for
one game elimination. I love this. Yeah, I think I
think similar single elimination is cool. I think it appeals
more to the American audience, and the American audience is
who they're wanting to capture right now, right like we
(28:10):
like for sure, this is a huge chance for the
Champions League, for La Liga, for the German league, like
this is this is a time where people are wanting
sport to engage with their wanting something to watch on
TV and anything that makes it more friendly, you know,
like because I'm sure you've had this conversation plenty of times, Martino,
where you know, you sit down with your American buddy
who likes basketball and football and you try and explain
(28:32):
to them like, okay, so the Champions League is um,
it's the four best teams from these leagues, but then
the three best teams from these leagues and the one
best team from the Finnish league, and and like in everything,
like every every step less where you don't have to
explain it is good, right like every like every fewer
step you take is um is is what you want? Yeah,
(28:54):
And they meet strides to that when they finally expanded
for extra spots in the bigger leagues because they've realizes
getting in teams you know kind of like not to
pick on them, but Slavia Prague being in the Champions
you don't you want less of those guys, just even
if enter Milan for example, like you know, finishing fourth,
because it used to be like a third place for
Italy used to go to the playoff round and then
(29:15):
and they would have to play in but fourth gets
in now like it's better to have the bigger name
teams in there because that also means more players are
likely to go to teams like that, Like Lukaku wasn't
gonna be going to enter Milan like five years ago.
Right now that that's another team that is has the
potential to grab bigg bigger players. It's kind of like
the recruiting shrail in college football or college basketball. Not
(29:37):
everyone's strictly going to Kentucky Duke and U N See,
they're spreading it out a little bit more like you'll
see U C l a kind of returning get some
other topic cruises, it's like the equivalent of that. So
I think it's great to see. And also the single
game elimination, and you're talking about the U S ground,
something in the U S crowd loves so much as
the World Cup was the World Cup had single game
elimination after the group stayed, so that plays a part
(29:59):
into that. I think it's a pretty good experiment too,
because who knows, Like if it's super successful, maybe they
get rid of it. Maybe they switched to say, you know,
semifinals is one game and the finals one game where
they just have two legs will be around of sixteen,
and the quarterfinals maybe something like that that they change up. Um.
But I mean, it's really it's really fun to see.
And one of the things that so half the games
(30:22):
were finished in the round of sixteen, right, the matchups
that finished we saw have let it go knockoff Liverpool,
so that and then Byron seemingly gonna take down Chelsea
because they won three nothing at Stanford Bridge. But there's
the bout the return leg, and some home teams are
not going to have the advantage that they would have
hoped to have before COVID hit, and one of those
would be juventous in this right. They lost the Leone
(30:44):
in France one to nothing, so everybody after that was like, Okay,
that's not a great result. They didn't get any away goals,
but they're going back home and we know how good
they are there. Now they don't really have that advantage.
Are you under the thought process and ideology that they
should get rid of away goals for the rest of
these games simply because the other team doesn't get the
(31:09):
quote unquote advantage that the other team had before the
crisis hit. Um, yeah, I think it doesn't make much
sense to keep it right like you just you just
gotta get rid of it entirely and just play the
rest of it as single elimination. But that that would
be that would be my opinion. Yeah, I would be
very like Leon keeps getting screwed. It feels so bad
(31:30):
the French League ended. They don't get to go to
the Champions League and now they have to deal with
the potential of Noah Weagles, Like what if they did
just all they have to do is score one against
hut in Torino and then all of a sudden they
get that away goal when Huba didn't get one. You're
looking what is basically to nothing is really like three
nothing in reality. So I mean, look, it hurts them,
(31:52):
but I think it is definitely fair because we've seen
that being the home team really doesn't matter that much,
right We saw it in Bundesliga. There's no advance is
that's really played a part in there. We see all
the fixtures and odds for these away and home teams
for the Premier League this weekend, not a lot of
home teams are favorite like you would think, so I
think it all plays and intertwines like that. So we'll
(32:14):
see as of right now that is not the case.
As of right now, they're going to keep the away
goal UH situation. But let's look at some of the
future odds. None of them changed after everything came out.
Byron is still the favorite, UH, and Man City is
still the favorite, and PSG UH the favorite as well.
So City and PSG two teams that have never won
the Champions League. In fact, they've never been to the
(32:35):
final either. Um. Something that has really been daunting them,
similar to HU ventis how they can't just get over
that hump and win that title, and that's something that
they covered so badly. Are you okay with City being
that heavy of a favorite here when they still didn't
officially eliminate Real Madrid even though they're in a very
good position to advance to the next round. And same
(32:58):
thing with p s G. I think p SEE might
benefit the most out of all these teams because usually
they have some sort of injury crisis going on. So
what do you think about some of these odds? Um?
I enjoy them, right I I I love I love
to bet on, I love to bet on the Champions League.
The Champions League is actually what made me fall in
love with uh what maybe fall in love with the
(33:21):
foots the soccer in the first place. The team that
I like the most, though, is I actually like PSG
the most. I know they Oh, they're chokers and they
can't get it done and whatever. First of all, like
I don't I don't um believe that. I don't believe
that about them. I don't believe them Uh, you know,
I don't believe that about neymar I don't believe that
about the Maria. I don't believe that about in Bobby.
(33:43):
I think they are fantastic and you know, if you
look at how they match up to the rest of
the other great teams, you know, you look at how
they match up against Man City. Um, I think they
can sort of outgun all those teams, right, Like, I
think they have more offensive fire power, And I also
think that their ability to hold the ball, their ability
(34:05):
to stay strong at the back, like, I think it's
all just, um a little bit underrated because of some
of the failures of the team in the past. And
my my hot take on the situation though, would be
it's actually better for PSG to play with no fans
because then they don't have to feel that nervous energy
inside the stadium, right and that and that's um I
(34:27):
I actually legitimately do believe that that that is a
benefit for for the PSG players who have kind of
gotten that in their head. Yeah, I would agree with
that as well. And the only thing that kind of
scares me away from them is that they're probably, Yeah,
they're the only team left besides leone that hasn't played
a game or they won't be playing any games before that.
(34:47):
I mean, they're gonna have to hope to get into
some exhibition matches trying to get their match conditioning up
as best as possible. But we know Legoun is done
so that that might be the only thing in there.
But again, single elimination. Now, anybody can beat anybody in
this sport, right, Like we've seen in the euros we
see Iceland making a deep run. We've seen some some
teams having no business beating others, like Switzerland beat Spain
(35:11):
in the World Cup, like Spain's that that was the
greatest stretch of international team play and in history, right right, Yeah,
it's besides like Brazil in the late seventies, early seventies,
late sixties. But like that's saying something. And in this
sport where anything like Leicester City five thousand one on
its when's the Premier League, Like, there's been tons of
(35:31):
examples over the years that this can be done, it
can be pulled off, and that was in a thirty
eight game season with Lester Right here, all you're asking
is for one game for Atalanta, one of the best
offensive teams in the world to win plus twenty one,
even if you're able to head your bed afterwards. I mean, look,
if Atalanta get to the semifinal, man, I I really
do think that they have an opportunity to do so.
(35:52):
Their defense is is rocky at times, but there's no
denying that they could give any defense in the world
a lot of trouble. Yeah, no, I I totally agree
with you. And I think that that point that you make,
more specifically or or maybe broadly about wagering in general,
is the less certain, the less certain we are and
(36:13):
the more random results could get, the you should be.
You are more incentivized at that point to take underdogs
and to take longer shots as opposed to betting favorites,
because the markets are going to be setting those prices
like they have information that they don't actually have, and
you know that really that really sets up for profitable
betting on you know, long shots on big underdogs, Like
(36:36):
that's really the direction you would want to be heading. Yeah,
and I mean I even think Byron has the like, look,
I mean, it's all value because it's plus money, but
Byron Byron plus two sixty, I mean, they look unbelievable
it's a little bit unfair and different to compare the
other teams because they're not further along into this you know,
revamped season as others are. UM Leipzig right, Plus Timo
(37:00):
Werner isn't gonna be playing for them, He's going to
Chelsea the second these couple of games wrap up. He
gets Leipzig back into the Champions League, which they're holding
to hold onto that spot forward, we're gonna be talking
about that next against Dortman. Are you a fan of
him kind of quote unquote quitting on Leipzig right now,
just leaving to go play for Chelsea and get things
ready for the next Premier League season. Or do you
(37:22):
think it's fair like he finished out the season in
the Bundesliga help him get into the Champions League with
his performances. What's your opinion on Just just curious so
as it pertains to Leipzig in particular. Couldn't care less
because this is a team. This is a team that
um you know, it's it's a corporation team. It is
if they they only really exist to advertise and make
(37:45):
money for a corporation. That's why they have Red Bull
in um Austria that's why I mean for those people. Yeah,
Leipzig used to be like they I believe they were
a third division team five years ago. Read the Red
Bull Corporation purchases them, you know, starts loading them up
with money, builds them straight of the art training facilities
(38:07):
and everything, and like that's cool, that's really good for
the game of soccer. That's good for the game of football.
But I don't like, this is not a team with
hundreds of years of history like Sheffield United or something
like TEAMO. If you want to go get your money, man,
go get your money. I don't care what happens to Leipzig. Yeah,
a lot of people feel that way about lives because
especially in Germany as well. Um, and we've really seen
(38:28):
a lot of this um, you know, kind of within
the last twenty years or so. Even some some like
they call that new money now, like Manchester City and
PSGs the new money. Chelsea is more of the old
money kind of guard where they were splashing all that
cash when Abramovich headed over there and took over the team,
and now they're kind of self run. You know, they've
built their brand up enough, they have enough respect and
(38:50):
all that. But yeah, I agree to the extent. I mean,
like he's finishing the boon dis league season. They don't
really have like a massive opportunity to win this Champions League. Um.
And that's why I really love Atalanta over them at
plus twelve hundred. Um. Yeah, I don't know. I mean,
go ahead, team, do what you want, like there's no
obligation to it. Leipzig is what like ten years old?
(39:11):
Maybe I don't know. I think I think the New
York Red Bulls have been around longer than Rby Leipzig
has literally literally though they have that like they're the franchise.
History of the New York Red Bulls is well, they
used to be called to the Metro Stars, to the
New York Metro Stars, like Tony Meola used to used
to play for them back in the day, and then
I think they changed up somewhere early around the early
two thousand's. I believe it was sports grid dot Com
(39:39):
betting insights and entertainment at your fingertips, as our team
covers the most important topics in sports wagering, real time odds,
predictive betting models, expert picks, and more want the edge
than get on the grid. Sports Grid dot Com. All right,
(39:59):
every buddy, welcome back into the free kick. Favorite part
of the show. All the weekend matchups that we're gonna
be getting into. Martino Puccio, Davis Maddick here with you, Davis.
This this is the best because sarias back this weekend,
we have La Liga, we have Premier League having all
their games. Boondes League is just about wrapping up, so
the Champions League race is really tight. There, so a
massive matchup that we're gonna look towards first RB like
(40:22):
SI first Dortman. Dorton is pretty much in the Champions League.
They solidified that they're the second best team in this league, Leipzig.
They still have a chance to miss out on the
Champions League. I don't think it's that likely that they do.
But this is a must grab point matchup, not a
must win. If they get a draw, that's good enough,
right because they could still separate themselves by four points
(40:45):
over um Glodbach and and lever Cruising depending on what
happens to them. But how interested are you in this game?
This is like, this is like one of the best
games that you could have towards the end of the season.
There's implications on the line. It's great for dfs. I
think the over are totals as well, Like there's there's
great stuff to bet on, like the over under two
and a half minus one sixty six to go over
(41:07):
two and a half goals under two and a half
as plus one thirty six and probably don't want to
lean that way, but the three and a half over
three and a half plus one fifty four and then
the other three and a half plus minus eight. I mean,
these are pretty damn good odds, and you don't get
them a lot often that you get decent odds like
this for two totals, it's usually just you know, two
and a half or just the three and a half
(41:28):
that you could really look at. Yeah, I mean, I
think the reasons to like the over here are gold
differential totally counts for these two teams. They actually had
the exact same goal differential, and with buyer lever Houston
sitting at sixty points, Brucial Munch and Gladback sitting at
fifty nine points, there is actually a scenario where gold
(41:50):
differential comes into play for both of these teams over
the next two games. Like I actually might end up
mattering to how much money their club makes, like they
might like if if Dortmunt ties Leipzig in the end
but loses on goal differential, like the way prize money
gets paid out, that might be like a fifteen million
dollar mistakes. So both of these teams are going to
(42:10):
come into this game wanting to score goals. So I am,
I'm with you on both of those. Yeah. So sometimes though,
just to say, a lot of the times when a
game is like this, they might be tightening defensively right
for me, the way that the way they play and
they know that they gotta win somethings like Leipzig nos
(42:31):
like if they get a win here, they're safe, like
they're good. They lose, you know, they're not in great shape.
So for me, that kind of makes it feel like
this game is going to be open, and and that's
kind of why I'm leaning towards the over in both
of those numbers and even then results and both to score.
So I know, I'm obsessed with this with this bag.
(42:52):
The result, I mean, the result in both the score
is a good one though, because that's like just if
you're watching a game, you like feel like that is
the normal thing to happen, like shutouts just are not
that common, Like like think about it. All you have
to do is really think to yourself and say, hey,
is there is a scenario in which I see Dortonon
winning this game two to one? You say, yeah, it's
(43:12):
definitely possible, right, And then you look at the odds
for result in both to score. Dorman's at plus three
sixt So why not put some money on that? Like
there's a there's no reason to stray away from it.
And in that instance, and I know, you know when
you're growing in with plus money and all that stuff,
like the odds are not in your favor. I mean, hell,
even if you think two to two kind of game
(43:33):
draws plus three ten. I just think that's something to
look at, especially when it's always something to look at
when you're going with the over, especially at like three
and a half, right, Like why not at that point
and if you feel strongly about a winner, then that's
actually you make a great point. I would rather bet
result in both the score then an over on three
(43:55):
and a half, because at three and a half you're
saying either like if both don't score and you don't
have a lean in the game, you're saying one team
as the possibility of winning four zero, and like such
a small percentage of those games at like soccer games
ever finished for zero. Yeah, and that's only really like
when Byron plays like Paderborn or something and they just
(44:16):
have like that fifteen sixteen minute stretch where they're where
Lewandowski and Gonabrey and whoever else wants to score scores.
So so I mean, that's that's always possible there. So yeah,
I don't know I'd be I'd be looking at that.
What about the triple money line, I mean here there's
value across Leipsig plus one thirty draws plus to sixty
Dortmund plus. I mean, look, I don't know. For for me,
(44:40):
I just like my eyes always light up when I
see something like this, just because I'm like, you can
you can't really lose, like you lose, but it's not
a bad beat, Like what's the worst here? Whatever you
put down ten bucks, you lose ten dollars, Like that's
some much you're gonna lose in this situation, and the
payout could be pretty decent. At you like dort me
get nineteen and fifty cents because you think they're gonna win.
(45:00):
It's definitely possible. It's not crazy, no I I Um,
if I was betting this game, I would bet Dortmunt.
But um, they've been they've just been disappointing recently. Like
they just have played some really boring games. This game
against Mines. Yeah, they lose to zero. Now that's not
the entire story. They they had the ball way more
(45:22):
seventy possession, sixteen to ten on shots. But I mean,
like they just played boring in this game. It was
it was it was not you know what we have
come to not what we have come to expect from
this team. I mean. And and also very funny thing
about this mind's game. They they had seven different players
get yellow cards. Like they were they were trying their best,
(45:44):
they were putting in the tackles, they were being aggressive,
but they just they just couldn't make it happen against Mines.
And so I if I was betting a team, I
would bet Dortmund, but I'm not. I'm not in love
with it. I think having Holland injured with the must
ular injury hurt them. We know we saw him come
off the bench and he ends up scoring, so they
(46:05):
can get him to start in this game, I'd feel
a lot better about it. But to me, with the
way the odds are right now, I think the oddsmakers
are kind of not confident that they're going to be
putting their best to leving forward because they might not
be fully healthy. Look, I mean, it's it's a tough
one here. I think I'm probably keeping towards the totals
and going towards the result in both to score on
(46:25):
this um. Once lineups come out, I probably feel a
lot more confident in going a different way with a
certain game result in terms of money line. So so
I'll just probably I'm just I know, I'm a little reserved.
But it doesn't matter because at the end of the day,
like this isn't basketball, where you keep constantly subbing in guys,
subbing them off, putting them back in, and then for
(46:46):
stretches you can get what you expect out of some
of your players. Have a player plays poorly like Mare,
notregard just in your DFS lineup, like that's it, Like
you like, he isn't coming back in and you have
to deal with that. So so that's something you'll we
have to take into account. Oh yeah, so anything DFS
wise are you Are you loading up on a ton
of these guys? Do you team of Warner goodbye gift
(47:07):
for Leipzig a lot of goals coming from him? Maybe
one or two? It might Uh, I actually think in
that game, you know, it might make more sense to
look at um, you know, Raphael Guerrero, Uh, Christopher and Cuckoo, Uh,
Marcel sa Bits are you know some of these peripheral
scoring guys, because I think both teams are gonna play
with loads of energy, you know, try and play with
(47:28):
a lot of pace, try and play, you know, really
really forward attacking and and maybe the goals are not
gonna be there as much, but there should be a
lot of crosses and a lot of shots in that game.
So I would really be looking at at an old
old rafage and uh Christopher and Cuckoo. Well there you go.
Those are a couple of good guys that you could
have to put it in your DFS Alignum, so we're
(47:49):
gonna move over to the Premier League. Um so Liverpool Everton,
it's a derby, it's not a rivalry, right. I think
Liverpool is far and away the best club. They're just
playing these games out hoping to win their first Premier
League title. UM. So it's interesting, like Liverpool isn't a
heavy favorite in this minus one seventy. Everton really never
(48:10):
challenges them that much. They've been in flux the whole season.
They have Ancelotti as as their manager. Now I think
Liverpool just want to kill this off. Man. I really
have a hard time seeing them lose this game. And
I know Everton might come out aggressive, wanting to you know,
put their best foot forward, to look good under this
new audience and their whole light that they're playing under,
you know, kind of salvage something that was kind of
(48:31):
a lost season. But for me, look, this is Liverpool
all day. If it's minus one seventy, the over unders
around like over two and a half goals minus one
four the unders at plus one eighteen for that if
you do if you do UM the same game parlay
and you go with UM Liverpool money line minus one
seventy and the over minus one forty four and you
(48:53):
get plus one, which I kind of feel decent amount.
I think it's a decent wager that you could place
some money on. UM. I don't think you're gonna have
to really sweat it out that much. I mean, that's
just me. That's how confident I am in this game. Um. Look,
Liverpool really have nothing to play for it, this is it.
They just want to finish the title off as fast
as possible, and I think they do it here in
this game. Yeah yeah, yeah, So I think that, Um,
(49:18):
A great way to get your first sweat if you
are not not a lifelong Leiga fan or anything, is
to bet some money line parlays this weekend. And uh,
I actually, I actually think there are a couple of
ways that you can juice it up, even with Liverpool
at only minus one seventy. Um, I really like Sheffield
(49:39):
United on the road at Newcastle in there, and I
really really like Wolves plus one tent against west Ham.
I think the fact that these teams are on the
road is why the odds are like this way. But
as we know from watching the Bundesliga, without the crowds there,
there really has not been any home field advantage whatsoever
at all. So I am I am in on these
(50:00):
slight road favorites. I I agree with you as well.
And one of the things that I always tell people, UM,
with the Premier League more than any other league, like
nobody is scared of one another in this like anybody
believes that they could be somebody in this league, you know,
like in other leagues you could see some teams just
lay down, like a padder Born or something against Byron.
(50:20):
They like, no, they have no shot going into this
like not this, like we saw Watford blow the doors
off Liverpool three nothing. Watford's dreadful. Like I can't stand
watching them. It's like I know they're not going to
be relegated, and they didn't get relegated last year, but
I just wish they were, so I just don't have
to see it. Um Sheffield United is a little bit
of an interesting one because they do have some issues
(50:41):
scoring goals. Are you like you just you just think
it'll be like kind of a one nothing win. Um over,
I think Newcas terrible. I think Newcastle anything out loud.
I don't think they have I don't think they do
anything right. I think that, um you know, maybe maybe
they have some younger attacking players who add some moves,
but they have a hard time holding the ball. Their
(51:02):
center backs make mistakes all the time. And I love
Sheffield United. I love the way that they have um
I went, I love the way that they distribute the
ball with Fleck and Lunstrom into the box. I think
those dudes basically like are the way their offense works
is they kind of set up free kick routines in
open place. They get those guys in space out there,
(51:23):
and then they they run the plays um inside there.
So I I really, uh, I really, I really like
Sheffield ended and I think, um, I think they win
this game. Yeah good no, And I hope so too.
And I hope that if there's like a controversial goal,
I hope it goes their way because they absolutely got
Like I can't I still can't get over how bad
of a call there was, Like it's it's like you
(51:44):
have to get that right, Like there's so much on
the line there um in that situation. So hopefully for
them they could do that. Any other games that we
kind of wanted to check and look at, I think
Real Madrid and a Socio Dad might be the headliner
game in terms of like big names in a matchup
to look at um. So for me, that's kind of
somewhere I'll be looking towards minus one for Real Madrid. Again,
(52:05):
it's road game. Still when you see when you see
a team like that. I don't know for for me,
I just always like, all right, I feel comfortable with that,
especially if you want to would you add that to
your parlay that you were just discussing. Yeah, And I
mean because you know what what what you want to do.
What you want to do here is you want to
have the sweat and to add the sweat. You want
to have just the most. So if you if you
(52:26):
can convince me to add something, Man, I'm in because
I didn't want to let it out this weekend. Now
I know what you mean. You want to feel alive
again as as much as possible. But Davis, I am
so happy that all these leaks are back there Sara
games as well, so be on the lookout for those
and see if there's some great lines that you guys
can get out there. Um, good luck on your DFS
line ups, Davis. Hopefully you bring home some money there.
(52:49):
Other than that, everybody, thank you so much for watching
and enjoy the games. Today. Sports grid dot Com Betting
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Enjoy the show and thanks so much for listening. Hello everybody,
(00:25):
and welcome on into the Free Kick. On this Saturday morning,
on Martino Puccio joined alongside me is Davis Mattock Davis,
how you doing, I'm doing. I'm doing great, Martino. It's uh,
I mean it's great. We have everything sports are I
mean not sports, but but football football is back, right,
We got we got the EPL. We got to see
David Louise make, you know, a horrendous mistake that really,
(00:49):
you know, made me feel like the world was was
returning to normal. Yeah. No, and that was something that
we talked about last show on how how he terrifies
me at the back. Then sure enough, he didn't even
start the game. He comes on, makes that era that
led to the Sterling goal and then gets a red
card and basically Arsenal had no chance whatsoever. That game
(01:11):
really could have gotten a lot more out of hand
than I thought. Three nothing was kind of generous for
the way that Arsenal played. It could have easily been
five six nothing. UM City unfortunately didn't get to finish
off some of the chances that they had. You could
see some of the rust actually in the first half
for sure, UM, But the chances were there. So that's
good if they if they just figure out, you know,
like another pass or two. It's really not about the finishing.
(01:33):
A lot of people usually believe that it has to
do with the finishing on the shots. It's really just
kind of those last few touches and passes UM in
the final third that kind of leads to those goals.
It's not so much the shooting. Um, So what did
you think that? I mean, nothing really surprised us there.
We know the line was kind of right around the
total for three and a half. They hit under there.
(01:54):
But I mean it's not the worst being in the world,
considering that you could expect some answers to be missed
in the first game back. Yeah, so the line, you know,
the approach that I took to that game is I
just bet I bet City on the spread. Uh, so
they were going a half favorites and I actually, you know,
I really like to try and bet games early to
(02:15):
get good numbers. But that Arsenal lineup, man, it was
it was like it was like they thought it was
a Europa League game or something. So, you know, the
lineup that Arsenal runs out, they move Bakery Soccer up
to left wing as opposed to left back, where he'd been,
you know, kind of more comfortable. And actually I thought
(02:36):
he'd played tremendous there. I thought this was something good
that Arsenal was doing, you know, moving moving Soccer who
is a more creative player and having him play defensive
and that, you know, that kind of gives them more
options going forward. So I think maybe the thought there was, okay,
if we play him up a little bit more forward,
it'll be a little bit easier for us to stop
(02:57):
the counter attacks from Manchester City. So I didn't think
that was great to begin with. They play in the midfield,
They play Joe Willock who is twenty, They play Matteo
Gwendozy who is twenty two, and they play Eddie and
Kettia instead of Alexander Lacazette and Ketia is nineteen. I
mean this this lineup, it was I just there was
(03:21):
no way they could have thought they would have won
the game. It's exactly. But the funny thing is that
they actually do have a chance, Like you have to
give yourself a chance when you're coming back from a
break like this, right, like we've seen all bets are
off in in most instances that teams could really compete
or even get a point out of out of this situation,
and it kind of just it blows my mind on
(03:42):
what Arsenal is doing here. Maybe they're experimenting these last
few games to see who they really want to keep
in terms of youngsters, if they want to loan some
of them out. But they have a chance at the
Europa League spot, like they should still be gunning for that.
I don't know why, but no pun intended there. They
should still be going for that. I don't understand where
they were coming from with this approach here. And for City,
(04:02):
I mean, look, this is it's huge when a team
like that just lies down because the closer they get
to finishing in second is better for them. If they
potentially win an appeal for the Champions League to get
to play in it next year because that affects the
pot that they're in and and that's always something important
because for for the average American over here that doesn't
watch that often, they it's good to know that there's
(04:23):
a lot more to play for than just a title.
And that's kind of what happened. And a team that
is playing for another Europa League spot of Sheffield United
and they got dropped. I mean, there's there's no doubt
about it. I don't think I've seen any That's probably
one of the most egregious calls I've seen in a while,
maybe when the Saints got screwed in the NFC Championship
(04:43):
game something I could recall at the top of my
head as of recent Um. Yeah, Aston Villa's goalkeeper was
literally in the net, falling down in the net with
the ball. You could clearly see it over the line.
This wasn't a bar issue. This was a goal line
technology issue. Going technology usually sends it straight to the
ref um to his watch that he has when they're
playing the game. Apparently they said it wasn't working and
(05:04):
then they couldn't get anything with var to help them
out there, and again in zero zero. So that was
interesting is I guess that in the event that the
goal line technology doesn't work, there's not um a step,
there's like there's not a way to intervene inside the
rules with bar, which is um you know, I mean,
I guess, I guess it. It just really sucks for Rough.
(05:26):
It really sucks for them to be in that situation,
especially for a team who doesn't score a lot, and
Villa is a very poor side. So the fact that
you only get one point out of that game, I mean,
it's so disappointing, and it's really funny how it just
took like what the first half of the first game
back for something so bad to happen. Um. I mean,
it didn't really affect a lot of people who had
(05:46):
the under because the under was like everyone was hammering
like two and a half in this because no one
really expected anything crazy to go with that. So at
least people still want in that regard. But if you
did have Sheffield in a money line parlay, um, unfortunately
that didn't go well for you there. But uh man,
look it's it's it's really fascinating to see how all
(06:07):
this is going down. Um so cope it Tally, I
wanted to talk about it, right, So we talked about
it last week and we we didn't really get to
watch and cap the hu a Melon game that happened before. Then.
Cuvent just look terrible in that matchup. I think they
got outplayed, especially when they were facing a man down.
There was really no excuses there. They advanced on the
(06:28):
away goals because they tied one one in the first leg,
so they were fortunate enough there because otherwise it would
have gone straight to penalties, and who knows what happens. Look,
Ronaldo looked terrible. UM. A bunch of their players in
their midfield looked poor. UM. Their defense was solid obviously.
UM that that kind of was the main theme for
these couple of games for Cope. It tally same thing
(06:48):
with like Internnapoli too. It was just a one one game.
Then the final comes along zero zero draw, goes to
penalties Napoli when Buffon made some crazy saves right in
the minute um to just basically further cement why he's
the greatest of all time there um, and then they
lose and it's just you know, it's it's funny because
of the whole themes and it's already faces Napoli, his
(07:11):
former team that he left for Juventus. We know how
how angry all the fans get in terms of that
and how he left there. He never won a trophy
at Napoli and he ends up losing to them, and
he still doesn't have a trophy in Italy by the way,
which is like bizarre. His first one was the Europa
League with Chelsea and he's like sixty something years old.
He's a crazy story on how he used to be
an investment banker and then he left to go coach
(07:33):
a third division team in Italy. CUBID did not look
good at all. I think they by far, out of
all the four teams that played, they look the worst.
And you have to maybe give him the benefit of
the doubt, like we say, because they win the league
all the time. But man only a one point lead
and they're playing like this, I'm not sure it's as
safe as they think it is with twelve games left. Well,
(07:53):
I mean I think that you know, you've a you
can you can look at some of their players and
you can be like, well, you know, Ron getting a
little older probably is weird for you know, it's weird
for a guy what Ron is thirty four years old,
and two you're used to him being out wide and
they're still not completely used to this system. Yeah, so
(08:14):
I think you can look at him and be like,
he probably has such a meticulous fitness routine and such
a meticulous routine of you know, keeping his body in
top shape that you know, taking those three months off
was probably really hard for him, both in terms of
staying motivated and keeping his body where he wants it
to be at. So, you know, not surprising for him
to have, you know that that difficult of the game.
(08:35):
You know, in that in this sum in this Coppa
Teli final, they play Danillo up top basically you know,
kind of having him play next to Debola and Ronaldo,
which is you know, they do that so that Incinia
doesn't have as much room to move and they can
basically have two guys dedicated to keeping in Sennia from
cutting inside onto his uh, you know, onto his right foot.
(08:56):
But I mean, just you know, if I'm if I'm
thinking about tactical to decisions, I would so much rather
play Bernardeski out there as opposed to shunting him back
in the midfield, because you need, you need to be
able to cross the ball in nern You don't you
don't want you don't want him always with the ball
at his feet. So I I thought that was pretty
a pretty bad decision. Yeah, and it really didn't make
(09:18):
a lot of sense. Even those substitutes that Sary was making.
It was just weird. He was bringing Kader on Bernardeski
and I think Ramsey at one point too. It was
just it doesn't seem like everyone understands where they're supposed
to be playing. There's no continuity there, and in the
creativity aspect, like they weren't getting good looks. There was
a couple of chances within the second half that they
(09:40):
had some decent looks to get something off. But at
the end of the day, I look, it's just when
you don't score any goals over a hundred and eighty
minutes UM. And then even the penalties were a disaster too.
They only scored one or two of them. Danielo skuided
way over the net, Dibola got his saved. UM. It
was really just demoralizing for them. So, I mean, because
(10:04):
they're they're already down one nothing to leone in the
Champions League, there's a lot of added pressure to them
because they know this whole Cristiano Ronaldo signing is all
about the Champions League and winning lots of trophies, and
it kind of just feels like they're wasting him at
this point, almost similar to what Lebron was like for
the Lakers in their first year. Well and they I mean,
you know, there is real pressure from like a financial
(10:27):
perspective too, because they owe raw and so much money.
They owe him a lot of money for a long
time and unless they, you know, convince him to go
to the MLS or two PSG or something like they
need that Champions League money or that contract, is like
a disaster for you as an organization. Yeah, I think
you're exactly right, because at the end of the day,
(10:47):
you're kind of looking down, um the end of the line,
and you're kind of like, Okay, are we gonna have
to make a decision where we're gonna have to fire
our coach immediately and have a third one in three
years or we have to somewhat get rid of Christiano
ron All. Don't just hit reset on this whole thing,
because as of right now, like if they're not winning
the Champions League, they somehow lose this title race, they
go trophy list. That's very embarrassing for them. Um and
(11:11):
even if I understand they've been winning for so many
years now, at the end of the day, you cannot
waste one of the greatest players of all time, especially
in a in a league that still isn't up to
the standards that it used to be. And the fact
that they continue to struggle here and it didn't look
like it did any good for them to, you know,
kind of get that chemistry back up, because we know
(11:31):
how rough Napoli season has been. They righted the ship
and they ended up winning the trophy. As for Huve, now,
it's so much pressure there and it's kind of like
where did they focus their attention on because they still
have a few weeks too before the change. I mean,
they could lose the league. They could at this point,
they could lose the leaguelat SEO pretty easily if they
keep playing like this. Yeah, and and the thing is
(11:51):
with Latsio two, they really don't have to worry about
that much. I mean, it's they got eliminated from the
cop They just have these twelve matches to play out. Everybody,
for the most part, is healthy they've had really good chemistry,
they've been playing together for years now, and it's and
it's just one of those things that like, hey, I
think this might be a realistic thing to talk about,
but who knows, maybe this this weekend, once we start
(12:12):
talking again next show, you may end up winning like
three to nothing and Lazio slip up and drop all
three points and then Huba has a four point lead
and then just kind of like, okay, do we see
huve really blown a four point lead over this stretch.
But honestly, I think it might potentially be a conversation
worth having so insane that are you now changing your
mind and potentially just jumping on Lazio at this point
(12:33):
and getting this better now? Because if you may do
lose this weekend and Lacio win, Lancio goes in first,
and then those adds change, not drastically but a healthy amount. Yeah.
I mean, I I really like the idea of taking
Latsio at plus two fifty right now and just you know,
seeing seeing what we have, you know in terms of
you know, in terms of uh, you may just not
(12:55):
being able to play that well. I I really like it. Yeah,
And it's definitely earth of value at that point, and
even sticking with you right too right, I mean minus
to forty, there's not much value in that whatsoever. So
it's something to stay back on. And then even if
you do like them, after they lose and the odds change,
just take them then if it's minus one seventy or
something like that. But when we come back, we're gonna
(13:16):
be talking about some of the other Champions League topics.
Sports grid dot Com Betting insights and entertainment at your
fingertips as our team covers the most important topics in
sports wagering, real time odds, predictive betting models, expert picks,
and more want the edge than get on the grid
sports grid dot Com. Alright, everybody, welcome back into the
(13:44):
free kick. La Liga kicked off again at last week.
There's gonna be a ton more fixtures to get into
later in the show. But first, Davis, we just want
to talk about some of the matchups that took place
over the weekend. Real Madrid looked amazing. Barcelona and Messy,
I mean well Messy for the most part, didn't look
like he uh he missed a step whatsoever, um scoring
(14:05):
a couple of times. He also got football tackle. By
the way, I don't know if you saw that by
Leganiss captain Um in the midweek fixture, no red card.
They just gave him a yellow. What's your opinion on that,
by the way, because for me, like, if you're making
an actual like NFL tackle in a soccer game, that
should be a red card. I mean, you know, I'm
(14:26):
kind of I grew up. I grew up watching American sports,
watching tackle football everything, so I you know, I don't
I don't mind. Uh, I don't mind if every once
in a while we get we get a little bit
of rough out there and we only throw we only
throw yellow cards. I kind of think. I kind of
think it adds a little bit of something to the game.
But obviously, you know, especially when it's a messy, gotta
protect messy, right yeah, I know. Yeah, the holy even
(14:49):
even La Liga's president, which would like it's the equivalent
of the commissioner of the of the league, was saying
today on how Messi's better because he didn't leave to
go to Juventus like Christiano did, so he threw some
shade out in there. So you know, the sentiments that
go towards Messi and that League for sure. And he's
(15:09):
one goal shy I believe of his seven career goal
which is just absolutely insane. I mean just factoring in
all the assists that he has piled up as well.
I mean, the records just keep coming for him. He's
such a joy to watch and and one of the
guys that um is probably one of the best teenagers
they've had since Messi is on Sufati. I mean, that
(15:30):
finished that he had in that game midweek was just fantastic.
And did you have him in a DFS lineup because
I know he's somebody you were kind of looking forward
to with this restart going on, Yeah, for sure. I have.
I have a criticism to to Lever though on Barcelona,
which is Antoine Griesman is useless for them. I mean
(15:51):
it's like it's like he doesn't know, he doesn't know.
And and actually, by the way, the same thing was
true with Philippe Continuo. And I don't know who's faulted.
Is my guess is it's probably the organization's faults. Yeah,
I don't. I don't think it's the fault of the player.
But when you play with a guy as great as Messy,
I think and you were the man before, like you
(16:12):
were the best player on you were you were, um,
the best player on your team before. I think it's
very hard to know, Okay, when should I be aggressive?
When should I be shooting? When should I be distributing?
Should my teammates be trying to get me the ball
in the midfield? You know, should I be trying to
get them the ball? And um, and and maybe you
could say it's a language barrier type thing. You know,
(16:35):
there's a lot of different reasons for it. But Griesman
on Barcelona is no doubt. Like I, I literally think
they could go get on dress as R right now.
They could get they could get him back from Qatar,
and I think that he would do the exact same
job that Griesman is doing. See, this is what I
was saying months ago on this show to Chelsea Cabarcus,
who is who's the other host for this and um,
(16:56):
she does a lot of a lot of legas stuff
and works with the league and everything, so she's that
I was being too harsh. I'm just saying, look, if
you're at his age and his prime getting paid that
money with that transfer fee coming over from Athletic, go
and winning almost every single big prize possible. Even with France.
He's plays with a lot of great players there too.
It's not like he hasn't played with a loaded ross
(17:16):
there before, like he's he is actually useless. That's not
even that's not even an exaggeration, and he's not also
the first one you mentioned Coutino to and think about
dem Bell as well. They spent over three hundred almost
four hundred million euros on three guys and you could
argue all of them are flops. They're all terrible and
they've wasted all this money. They have financial fair play
(17:37):
issues too. Messy's not getting any younger, and you're just
sitting there to yourself saying, how much longer can they
ride the cotail of this? Because as of right now
they're basically becoming the Cleveland Cavaliers with Lebron James that
it's just strictly Lebron and he's making everybody a lot better.
There might be some talent around, but they don't play
as well together as a team as you would have
liked them to have to. Look, uh, they're still ahead,
(18:00):
they're still in first. Real Madrid has to play their
midweek game as well. I don't know. I think the
future outlook is not great for them because we don't
know what's happening with Suarez. Their signings like Frankie Deyong
isn't hasn't even gone back and played as well as
they would have liked too. They're just frustrating and I
(18:21):
don't roof for them. I don't like them on on
particularly a high level. It's just it's just frustrating to
see a talented player like that wasted when he could
clearly be the best player in the world on any
given day. Still, yeah, I I completely agree with you,
um and it's and it's just always frustrating because of
(18:41):
the way that these Spanish organizations are run is there
are different people with different motivations, all making decisions. You know,
the managers are going to have different desires than the
technical director, and the people voting for club president and
technical director have their own ideas, and then obviously Messi
has his own idea of you know, who he wants
to play with, who he wants to manage, and you know,
(19:03):
I'm sure I'm sure he wanted to play with Antoine Griesman,
but you know, didn't really think of like, oh, yeah,
I want to play with other talented players. But are
me and Griesman really that good of a fit. And
the answer is no, because they really are very similar
style players to you know, theoretically, they both kind of
play that center forward position, that that false nine where
you bring other players into the attack as opposed to
(19:26):
you know, just being a pure lethal finisher like Suarez
is a great partner for Messy, and if Griesman was
as good as Nymar, he would be a better partner.
But Naymar was so so good, and I actually think
maybe what made Nymar so good was that he did
not care what Messi thought, He didn't care what the
(19:46):
fans thought. He was like, I want to score goals,
I want to cross the ball, like I want to
go do all this. I want to go be the man.
And maybe Griesman wants to be the man. Maybe Gusman
should want to be the man a little bit more. Yeah,
I think so. There was always that kind of thought
on him where he was a little bit like James Harden,
one of the best players in the world, really stepped
(20:09):
up weekend week out, really got his team deep and
competing for potentially a title, and he just you know,
they lost those couple of finals against Real Madrid. They
lost the Euro Final against Portugal when they should have
won that match when Ronaldo left um with the injury.
They end up winning the World clock Cup, so that
stigma got removed a little bit. But then he makes
(20:31):
this move over to Barcelona. I mean, it's really it's
like really bad, and it's not really talked about enough
because of the amount of money that they spend. And
even then, they're still looking to get Lataro Martinez over
from inter and not trying to figure out their other
holes and issues that they have because their defense isn't
that right. I think they can improve in their fullback situations.
(20:52):
It's like racket Titch and vidollarg is racking up these
high wage bills and they're not using them as often
as they should. They don't know who to put on
the left side, And you're right, it's just at at
this point, the best compliment for Messi is Suarez, and
Suarez is maybe gone soon. And also Messi hasn't extended
that contract beyond this season the next season, so it's
(21:12):
technically still up. It's gonna be difficult to see him
leave there. But I mean at a certain point that
you would think if things are going so well over there,
that he would have resigned by now, right, Yeah, and
I mean he does like to. I mean, he should
obviously want to keep that leverage over Barcelona, you know
he doesn't. He shouldn't want to give them too much
(21:33):
before they are willing to give him more, right, yeah,
and and so he and and that's you know, it's
important to keep that. But also, I mean, wouldn't it
wouldn't it be kind of fun to see Messi, you know,
play for Chelsea or United or or or maybe even
you know ps G would give him anything in guitar?
Would they would give him anything? The MLS would? You know,
they just whatever he wanted, They would give Messy billions
(21:56):
to play for them. He would it would it would,
honestly be I would love to see it, just to
see what happened, you know, kind of like a free
agent thing, like Ronaldo still had to get transferred over
from Real Madrid. You know that that was a negotiation
with the club. It wasn't just Cristiano has his pickings
of where he wants to go. Well technically still does,
because you know, like it didn't matter if you know,
United offer two hundred million, Cristiano doesn't want to go there.
(22:17):
He doesn't want to go there. That's kind of part.
It's not like a trade in our professional sports, just
for people who don't really know how the transperceism works.
It has to be an agreement between It's like a
no trade clause for every player for the most part,
but some players have more leverage than the others. Um yeah,
I mean, I don't know. I think I think the
coolest place maybe be at City Reunited with pet I
(22:39):
wou'd be fun because it was a lot of people
that are always like, he can't score and do what
he did in the Premier League anywhere else, not Like
he absolutely has scored like a ton of goals against
all those top Premier League teams in the Champions League
right where he basically single handedly had had it in
the bag against Liverpool. But it's none of his teammates
could have helped him out last year. So I mean
that that'll be fascinating to see as well. Um, so
(23:00):
Real Madrid looked really good with his art over the weekend.
Um he finally healthy, right, and that's something that really matters, Right,
that's one of the ten best players in the world
that didn't really do much or play a lot, kind
of like griesman um with his output in performance. But
if Real Madrid have this version of Hazard, I think
(23:22):
they're almost a lot to win this league, especially like
the opportunity that bus I have, Like they could easily
drop points here, Like it's not it's not out of
the realm of possibility. Yeah no, I I um, I
agree with that. I I when we did our show
last week and we were talking about the restart, I said,
you know, I just I think that this was a
better time off for Real Madrid. I think that I
(23:45):
think that they were going to be able to do
more with the time off and they had the unknown
of edon Hazard and even Rodrigo and Vanisius Jr. Like
those guys. You know, we we think about those young
guys like they had time to practice, they had time
to think about their skill sets, Like every day Rodrigo
and Venitius Junior get like point zero three percent better
(24:06):
because they're they're so young. They're these guys are are
teenagers and they have more time to refine their skill
sets and get more experience and training. So I I yeah,
I do think Madrid does end up winning um well Liga. Yeah,
And and it's just crazy because again you're right, I
totally agree with how how much they get better in
that times man, because when you play a lot, you
(24:29):
get kind of get thrown into the deep end, thrown
to the wolves, and it kind of can be a
lot at once, but you're still playing. You get a
nice like break kind of kind of like when tennis
players sometimes they're having a rough day but they get
bailed out because of a rain out. They restart, you know,
take it like go to bed, wake up, it's a
new day. Things get are completely different. You have a
(24:50):
different mentality than you did twenty four hours ago. Like
think about how much more different their mentality is three
months later. Like like they consumed every he thought, every
play that they had, Like they could watch replays of
what they were doing wrong, what they were doing correct,
training at home, honing their skills. I mean, there's just
so many benefits to them, and especially with that young squat.
(25:11):
And it's funny too because you don't see that happen
with Barsa maybe on Sufat he is the only one
that we've seen so far. But I mean, I mean,
they're really scary because it's not about Real Madrid this year.
I think it could be a changing of the guard
for a few years now with La Liga, let alone
everything else. Yeah, no, I'm I'm I'm totally with you,
and I just think it's gonna be. It's just gonna be.
(25:33):
It's gonna be really awesome to watch it all play out.
And maybe maybe this um, this competition drives Griesman to
be the best version of himself, which would be you know,
good for good for all of us, because he is
an awesome player to watch when he's on on top four.
Silver lining could be that his price drops on dfs
and then you could just keep plugging him in and
(25:54):
then hopefully he gives you the return that you've been
hoping for so many weeks that you wasted on him.
Um some some other smaller news in law Lega before
we had to break here, Cavani heading to Athletico Madrid.
Most likely he won't be renewing with PSG PSG getting
rid of a few players. Thiago Silva was another one.
Cavani a good fit. How how long do you think
that would really last? I think it's a great fit
(26:15):
for them. Mom if he agrees, Yeah, good fit because
Joel Felix more of a creative player, less of a finisher.
So I yeah, I like that quite a bit. Yeah,
and he scored a great goal as well. It's good
to see him healthy and progressing as well. He's such
a talented player. But when we come back, we're gonna
be talking about the decisions that you Wave have made
in terms of the Champions League, and we'll look at
some future odds. Sports grid dot com betting insights and
(26:39):
entertainment at your fingertips seven as our team covers the
most important topics in sports wagering, real time odds, predictive
betting models, expert picks, and more. Want the edge than
get on the grid sports grid dot com. This is
(27:04):
sports grade. Hello everybody, welcome back into the Free Kick.
Here Martino Puccio and Davis Maddick breaking down some of
the top leagues and tournaments. Davis, we're gonna get into
the biggest tournament of them all. The Champions League officially
(27:26):
announced back eight teams will be heading to Lisbon once
the Round of sixteen wraps up. Quarterfinals, semifinals, and the
final all gonna be their quarterfinals and semi's are gonna
be single game elimination. No two legs to worry about,
no dreaded away goals that I hate so much that
you have to factor in when you're placing your bets, Davis,
(27:48):
or you were a fan of this, this was probably
one of the more logistical ways that you could have gone,
giving the circumstances in this Uh, I'm really excited for
one game elimination. I love this. Yeah, I think I
think similar single elimination is cool. I think it appeals
more to the American audience, and the American audience is
who they're wanting to capture right now, right like we
(28:10):
like for sure, this is a huge chance for the
Champions League, for La Liga, for the German league, like
this is this is a time where people are wanting
sport to engage with their wanting something to watch on
TV and anything that makes it more friendly, you know,
like because I'm sure you've had this conversation plenty of times, Martino,
where you know, you sit down with your American buddy
who likes basketball and football and you try and explain
(28:32):
to them like, okay, so the Champions League is um,
it's the four best teams from these leagues, but then
the three best teams from these leagues and the one
best team from the Finnish league, and and like in everything,
like every every step less where you don't have to
explain it is good, right like every like every fewer
step you take is um is is what you want? Yeah,
(28:54):
And they meet strides to that when they finally expanded
for extra spots in the bigger leagues because they've realizes
getting in teams you know kind of like not to
pick on them, but Slavia Prague being in the Champions
you don't you want less of those guys, just even
if enter Milan for example, like you know, finishing fourth,
because it used to be like a third place for
Italy used to go to the playoff round and then
(29:15):
and they would have to play in but fourth gets
in now like it's better to have the bigger name
teams in there because that also means more players are
likely to go to teams like that, Like Lukaku wasn't
gonna be going to enter Milan like five years ago.
Right now that that's another team that is has the
potential to grab bigg bigger players. It's kind of like
the recruiting shrail in college football or college basketball. Not
(29:37):
everyone's strictly going to Kentucky Duke and U N See,
they're spreading it out a little bit more like you'll
see U C l a kind of returning get some
other topic cruises, it's like the equivalent of that. So
I think it's great to see. And also the single
game elimination, and you're talking about the U S ground,
something in the U S crowd loves so much as
the World Cup was the World Cup had single game
elimination after the group stayed, so that plays a part
(29:59):
into that. I think it's a pretty good experiment too,
because who knows, Like if it's super successful, maybe they
get rid of it. Maybe they switched to say, you know,
semifinals is one game and the finals one game where
they just have two legs will be around of sixteen,
and the quarterfinals maybe something like that that they change up. Um.
But I mean, it's really it's really fun to see.
And one of the things that so half the games
(30:22):
were finished in the round of sixteen, right, the matchups
that finished we saw have let it go knockoff Liverpool,
so that and then Byron seemingly gonna take down Chelsea
because they won three nothing at Stanford Bridge. But there's
the bout the return leg, and some home teams are
not going to have the advantage that they would have
hoped to have before COVID hit, and one of those
would be juventous in this right. They lost the Leone
(30:44):
in France one to nothing, so everybody after that was like, Okay,
that's not a great result. They didn't get any away goals,
but they're going back home and we know how good
they are there. Now they don't really have that advantage.
Are you under the thought process and ideology that they
should get rid of away goals for the rest of
these games simply because the other team doesn't get the
(31:09):
quote unquote advantage that the other team had before the
crisis hit. Um, yeah, I think it doesn't make much
sense to keep it right like you just you just
gotta get rid of it entirely and just play the
rest of it as single elimination. But that that would
be that would be my opinion. Yeah, I would be
very like Leon keeps getting screwed. It feels so bad
(31:30):
the French League ended. They don't get to go to
the Champions League and now they have to deal with
the potential of Noah Weagles, Like what if they did
just all they have to do is score one against
hut in Torino and then all of a sudden they
get that away goal when Huba didn't get one. You're
looking what is basically to nothing is really like three
nothing in reality. So I mean, look, it hurts them,
(31:52):
but I think it is definitely fair because we've seen
that being the home team really doesn't matter that much,
right We saw it in Bundesliga. There's no advance is
that's really played a part in there. We see all
the fixtures and odds for these away and home teams
for the Premier League this weekend, not a lot of
home teams are favorite like you would think, so I
think it all plays and intertwines like that. So we'll
(32:14):
see as of right now that is not the case.
As of right now, they're going to keep the away
goal UH situation. But let's look at some of the
future odds. None of them changed after everything came out.
Byron is still the favorite, UH, and Man City is
still the favorite, and PSG UH the favorite as well.
So City and PSG two teams that have never won
the Champions League. In fact, they've never been to the
(32:35):
final either. Um. Something that has really been daunting them,
similar to HU ventis how they can't just get over
that hump and win that title, and that's something that
they covered so badly. Are you okay with City being
that heavy of a favorite here when they still didn't
officially eliminate Real Madrid even though they're in a very
good position to advance to the next round. And same
(32:58):
thing with p s G. I think p SEE might
benefit the most out of all these teams because usually
they have some sort of injury crisis going on. So
what do you think about some of these odds? Um?
I enjoy them, right I I I love I love
to bet on, I love to bet on the Champions League.
The Champions League is actually what made me fall in
love with uh what maybe fall in love with the
(33:21):
foots the soccer in the first place. The team that
I like the most, though, is I actually like PSG
the most. I know they Oh, they're chokers and they
can't get it done and whatever. First of all, like
I don't I don't um believe that. I don't believe
that about them. I don't believe them Uh, you know,
I don't believe that about neymar I don't believe that
about the Maria. I don't believe that about in Bobby.
(33:43):
I think they are fantastic and you know, if you
look at how they match up to the rest of
the other great teams, you know, you look at how
they match up against Man City. Um, I think they
can sort of outgun all those teams, right, Like, I
think they have more offensive fire power, And I also
think that their ability to hold the ball, their ability
(34:05):
to stay strong at the back, like, I think it's
all just, um a little bit underrated because of some
of the failures of the team in the past. And
my my hot take on the situation though, would be
it's actually better for PSG to play with no fans
because then they don't have to feel that nervous energy
inside the stadium, right and that and that's um I
(34:27):
I actually legitimately do believe that that that is a
benefit for for the PSG players who have kind of
gotten that in their head. Yeah, I would agree with
that as well. And the only thing that kind of
scares me away from them is that they're probably, Yeah,
they're the only team left besides leone that hasn't played
a game or they won't be playing any games before that.
(34:47):
I mean, they're gonna have to hope to get into
some exhibition matches trying to get their match conditioning up
as best as possible. But we know Legoun is done
so that that might be the only thing in there.
But again, single elimination. Now, anybody can beat anybody in
this sport, right, Like we've seen in the euros we
see Iceland making a deep run. We've seen some some
teams having no business beating others, like Switzerland beat Spain
(35:11):
in the World Cup, like Spain's that that was the
greatest stretch of international team play and in history, right right, Yeah,
it's besides like Brazil in the late seventies, early seventies,
late sixties. But like that's saying something. And in this
sport where anything like Leicester City five thousand one on
its when's the Premier League, Like, there's been tons of
(35:31):
examples over the years that this can be done, it
can be pulled off, and that was in a thirty
eight game season with Lester Right here, all you're asking
is for one game for Atalanta, one of the best
offensive teams in the world to win plus twenty one,
even if you're able to head your bed afterwards. I mean, look,
if Atalanta get to the semifinal, man, I I really
do think that they have an opportunity to do so.
(35:52):
Their defense is is rocky at times, but there's no
denying that they could give any defense in the world
a lot of trouble. Yeah, no, I I totally agree
with you. And I think that that point that you make,
more specifically or or maybe broadly about wagering in general,
is the less certain, the less certain we are and
(36:13):
the more random results could get, the you should be.
You are more incentivized at that point to take underdogs
and to take longer shots as opposed to betting favorites,
because the markets are going to be setting those prices
like they have information that they don't actually have, and
you know that really that really sets up for profitable
betting on you know, long shots on big underdogs, Like
(36:36):
that's really the direction you would want to be heading. Yeah,
and I mean I even think Byron has the like, look,
I mean, it's all value because it's plus money, but
Byron Byron plus two sixty, I mean, they look unbelievable
it's a little bit unfair and different to compare the
other teams because they're not further along into this you know,
revamped season as others are. UM Leipzig right, Plus Timo
(37:00):
Werner isn't gonna be playing for them, He's going to
Chelsea the second these couple of games wrap up. He
gets Leipzig back into the Champions League, which they're holding
to hold onto that spot forward, we're gonna be talking
about that next against Dortman. Are you a fan of
him kind of quote unquote quitting on Leipzig right now,
just leaving to go play for Chelsea and get things
ready for the next Premier League season. Or do you
(37:22):
think it's fair like he finished out the season in
the Bundesliga help him get into the Champions League with
his performances. What's your opinion on Just just curious so
as it pertains to Leipzig in particular. Couldn't care less
because this is a team. This is a team that
um you know, it's it's a corporation team. It is
if they they only really exist to advertise and make
(37:45):
money for a corporation. That's why they have Red Bull
in um Austria that's why I mean for those people. Yeah,
Leipzig used to be like they I believe they were
a third division team five years ago. Read the Red
Bull Corporation purchases them, you know, starts loading them up
with money, builds them straight of the art training facilities
(38:07):
and everything, and like that's cool, that's really good for
the game of soccer. That's good for the game of football.
But I don't like, this is not a team with
hundreds of years of history like Sheffield United or something
like TEAMO. If you want to go get your money, man,
go get your money. I don't care what happens to Leipzig. Yeah,
a lot of people feel that way about lives because
especially in Germany as well. Um, and we've really seen
(38:28):
a lot of this um, you know, kind of within
the last twenty years or so. Even some some like
they call that new money now, like Manchester City and
PSGs the new money. Chelsea is more of the old
money kind of guard where they were splashing all that
cash when Abramovich headed over there and took over the team,
and now they're kind of self run. You know, they've
built their brand up enough, they have enough respect and
(38:50):
all that. But yeah, I agree to the extent. I mean,
like he's finishing the boon dis league season. They don't
really have like a massive opportunity to win this Champions League. Um.
And that's why I really love Atalanta over them at
plus twelve hundred. Um. Yeah, I don't know. I mean,
go ahead, team, do what you want, like there's no
obligation to it. Leipzig is what like ten years old?
(39:11):
Maybe I don't know. I think I think the New
York Red Bulls have been around longer than Rby Leipzig
has literally literally though they have that like they're the franchise.
History of the New York Red Bulls is well, they
used to be called to the Metro Stars, to the
New York Metro Stars, like Tony Meola used to used
to play for them back in the day, and then
I think they changed up somewhere early around the early
two thousand's. I believe it was sports grid dot Com
(39:39):
betting insights and entertainment at your fingertips, as our team
covers the most important topics in sports wagering, real time odds,
predictive betting models, expert picks, and more want the edge
than get on the grid. Sports Grid dot Com. All right,
(39:59):
every buddy, welcome back into the free kick. Favorite part
of the show. All the weekend matchups that we're gonna
be getting into. Martino Puccio, Davis Maddick here with you, Davis.
This this is the best because sarias back this weekend,
we have La Liga, we have Premier League having all
their games. Boondes League is just about wrapping up, so
the Champions League race is really tight. There, so a
massive matchup that we're gonna look towards first RB like
(40:22):
SI first Dortman. Dorton is pretty much in the Champions League.
They solidified that they're the second best team in this league, Leipzig.
They still have a chance to miss out on the
Champions League. I don't think it's that likely that they do.
But this is a must grab point matchup, not a
must win. If they get a draw, that's good enough,
right because they could still separate themselves by four points
(40:45):
over um Glodbach and and lever Cruising depending on what
happens to them. But how interested are you in this game?
This is like, this is like one of the best
games that you could have towards the end of the season.
There's implications on the line. It's great for dfs. I
think the over are totals as well, Like there's there's
great stuff to bet on, like the over under two
and a half minus one sixty six to go over
(41:07):
two and a half goals under two and a half
as plus one thirty six and probably don't want to
lean that way, but the three and a half over
three and a half plus one fifty four and then
the other three and a half plus minus eight. I mean,
these are pretty damn good odds, and you don't get
them a lot often that you get decent odds like
this for two totals, it's usually just you know, two
and a half or just the three and a half
(41:28):
that you could really look at. Yeah, I mean, I
think the reasons to like the over here are gold
differential totally counts for these two teams. They actually had
the exact same goal differential, and with buyer lever Houston
sitting at sixty points, Brucial Munch and Gladback sitting at
fifty nine points, there is actually a scenario where gold
(41:50):
differential comes into play for both of these teams over
the next two games. Like I actually might end up
mattering to how much money their club makes, like they
might like if if Dortmunt ties Leipzig in the end
but loses on goal differential, like the way prize money
gets paid out, that might be like a fifteen million
dollar mistakes. So both of these teams are going to
(42:10):
come into this game wanting to score goals. So I am,
I'm with you on both of those. Yeah. So sometimes though,
just to say, a lot of the times when a
game is like this, they might be tightening defensively right
for me, the way that the way they play and
they know that they gotta win somethings like Leipzig nos
(42:31):
like if they get a win here, they're safe, like
they're good. They lose, you know, they're not in great shape.
So for me, that kind of makes it feel like
this game is going to be open, and and that's
kind of why I'm leaning towards the over in both
of those numbers and even then results and both to score.
So I know, I'm obsessed with this with this bag.
(42:52):
The result, I mean, the result in both the score
is a good one though, because that's like just if
you're watching a game, you like feel like that is
the normal thing to happen, like shutouts just are not
that common, Like like think about it. All you have
to do is really think to yourself and say, hey,
is there is a scenario in which I see Dortonon
winning this game two to one? You say, yeah, it's
(43:12):
definitely possible, right, And then you look at the odds
for result in both to score. Dorman's at plus three
sixt So why not put some money on that? Like
there's a there's no reason to stray away from it.
And in that instance, and I know, you know when
you're growing in with plus money and all that stuff,
like the odds are not in your favor. I mean, hell,
even if you think two to two kind of game
(43:33):
draws plus three ten. I just think that's something to
look at, especially when it's always something to look at
when you're going with the over, especially at like three
and a half, right, Like why not at that point
and if you feel strongly about a winner, then that's
actually you make a great point. I would rather bet
result in both the score then an over on three
(43:55):
and a half, because at three and a half you're
saying either like if both don't score and you don't
have a lean in the game, you're saying one team
as the possibility of winning four zero, and like such
a small percentage of those games at like soccer games
ever finished for zero. Yeah, and that's only really like
when Byron plays like Paderborn or something and they just
(44:16):
have like that fifteen sixteen minute stretch where they're where
Lewandowski and Gonabrey and whoever else wants to score scores.
So so I mean, that's that's always possible there. So yeah,
I don't know I'd be I'd be looking at that.
What about the triple money line, I mean here there's
value across Leipsig plus one thirty draws plus to sixty
Dortmund plus. I mean, look, I don't know. For for me,
(44:40):
I just like my eyes always light up when I
see something like this, just because I'm like, you can
you can't really lose, like you lose, but it's not
a bad beat, Like what's the worst here? Whatever you
put down ten bucks, you lose ten dollars, Like that's
some much you're gonna lose in this situation, and the
payout could be pretty decent. At you like dort me
get nineteen and fifty cents because you think they're gonna win.
(45:00):
It's definitely possible. It's not crazy, no I I Um,
if I was betting this game, I would bet Dortmunt.
But um, they've been they've just been disappointing recently. Like
they just have played some really boring games. This game
against Mines. Yeah, they lose to zero. Now that's not
the entire story. They they had the ball way more
(45:22):
seventy possession, sixteen to ten on shots. But I mean,
like they just played boring in this game. It was
it was it was not you know what we have
come to not what we have come to expect from
this team. I mean. And and also very funny thing
about this mind's game. They they had seven different players
get yellow cards. Like they were they were trying their best,
(45:44):
they were putting in the tackles, they were being aggressive,
but they just they just couldn't make it happen against Mines.
And so I if I was betting a team, I
would bet Dortmund, but I'm not. I'm not in love
with it. I think having Holland injured with the must
ular injury hurt them. We know we saw him come
off the bench and he ends up scoring, so they
(46:05):
can get him to start in this game, I'd feel
a lot better about it. But to me, with the
way the odds are right now, I think the oddsmakers
are kind of not confident that they're going to be
putting their best to leving forward because they might not
be fully healthy. Look, I mean, it's it's a tough
one here. I think I'm probably keeping towards the totals
and going towards the result in both to score on
(46:25):
this um. Once lineups come out, I probably feel a
lot more confident in going a different way with a
certain game result in terms of money line. So so
I'll just probably I'm just I know, I'm a little reserved.
But it doesn't matter because at the end of the day,
like this isn't basketball, where you keep constantly subbing in guys,
subbing them off, putting them back in, and then for
(46:46):
stretches you can get what you expect out of some
of your players. Have a player plays poorly like Mare,
notregard just in your DFS lineup, like that's it, Like
you like, he isn't coming back in and you have
to deal with that. So so that's something you'll we
have to take into account. Oh yeah, so anything DFS
wise are you Are you loading up on a ton
of these guys? Do you team of Warner goodbye gift
(47:07):
for Leipzig a lot of goals coming from him? Maybe
one or two? It might Uh, I actually think in
that game, you know, it might make more sense to
look at um, you know, Raphael Guerrero, Uh, Christopher and Cuckoo, Uh,
Marcel sa Bits are you know some of these peripheral
scoring guys, because I think both teams are gonna play
with loads of energy, you know, try and play with
(47:28):
a lot of pace, try and play, you know, really
really forward attacking and and maybe the goals are not
gonna be there as much, but there should be a
lot of crosses and a lot of shots in that game.
So I would really be looking at at an old
old rafage and uh Christopher and Cuckoo. Well there you go.
Those are a couple of good guys that you could
have to put it in your DFS Alignum, so we're
(47:49):
gonna move over to the Premier League. Um so Liverpool Everton,
it's a derby, it's not a rivalry, right. I think
Liverpool is far and away the best club. They're just
playing these games out hoping to win their first Premier
League title. UM. So it's interesting, like Liverpool isn't a
heavy favorite in this minus one seventy. Everton really never
(48:10):
challenges them that much. They've been in flux the whole season.
They have Ancelotti as as their manager. Now I think
Liverpool just want to kill this off. Man. I really
have a hard time seeing them lose this game. And
I know Everton might come out aggressive, wanting to you know,
put their best foot forward, to look good under this
new audience and their whole light that they're playing under,
you know, kind of salvage something that was kind of
(48:31):
a lost season. But for me, look, this is Liverpool
all day. If it's minus one seventy, the over unders
around like over two and a half goals minus one
four the unders at plus one eighteen for that if
you do if you do UM the same game parlay
and you go with UM Liverpool money line minus one
seventy and the over minus one forty four and you
(48:53):
get plus one, which I kind of feel decent amount.
I think it's a decent wager that you could place
some money on. UM. I don't think you're gonna have
to really sweat it out that much. I mean, that's
just me. That's how confident I am in this game. Um. Look,
Liverpool really have nothing to play for it, this is it.
They just want to finish the title off as fast
as possible, and I think they do it here in
this game. Yeah yeah, yeah, So I think that, Um,
(49:18):
A great way to get your first sweat if you
are not not a lifelong Leiga fan or anything, is
to bet some money line parlays this weekend. And uh,
I actually, I actually think there are a couple of
ways that you can juice it up, even with Liverpool
at only minus one seventy. Um, I really like Sheffield
(49:39):
United on the road at Newcastle in there, and I
really really like Wolves plus one tent against west Ham.
I think the fact that these teams are on the
road is why the odds are like this way. But
as we know from watching the Bundesliga, without the crowds there,
there really has not been any home field advantage whatsoever
at all. So I am I am in on these
(50:00):
slight road favorites. I I agree with you as well.
And one of the things that I always tell people, UM,
with the Premier League more than any other league, like
nobody is scared of one another in this like anybody
believes that they could be somebody in this league, you know,
like in other leagues you could see some teams just
lay down, like a padder Born or something against Byron.
(50:20):
They like, no, they have no shot going into this
like not this, like we saw Watford blow the doors
off Liverpool three nothing. Watford's dreadful. Like I can't stand
watching them. It's like I know they're not going to
be relegated, and they didn't get relegated last year, but
I just wish they were, so I just don't have
to see it. Um Sheffield United is a little bit
of an interesting one because they do have some issues
(50:41):
scoring goals. Are you like you just you just think
it'll be like kind of a one nothing win. Um over,
I think Newcas terrible. I think Newcastle anything out loud.
I don't think they have I don't think they do
anything right. I think that, um you know, maybe maybe
they have some younger attacking players who add some moves,
but they have a hard time holding the ball. Their
(51:02):
center backs make mistakes all the time. And I love
Sheffield United. I love the way that they have um
I went, I love the way that they distribute the
ball with Fleck and Lunstrom into the box. I think
those dudes basically like are the way their offense works
is they kind of set up free kick routines in
open place. They get those guys in space out there,
(51:23):
and then they they run the plays um inside there.
So I I really, uh, I really, I really like
Sheffield ended and I think, um, I think they win
this game. Yeah good no, And I hope so too.
And I hope that if there's like a controversial goal,
I hope it goes their way because they absolutely got
Like I can't I still can't get over how bad
of a call there was, Like it's it's like you
(51:44):
have to get that right, Like there's so much on
the line there um in that situation. So hopefully for
them they could do that. Any other games that we
kind of wanted to check and look at, I think
Real Madrid and a Socio Dad might be the headliner
game in terms of like big names in a matchup
to look at um. So for me, that's kind of
somewhere I'll be looking towards minus one for Real Madrid. Again,
(52:05):
it's road game. Still when you see when you see
a team like that. I don't know for for me,
I just always like, all right, I feel comfortable with that,
especially if you want to would you add that to
your parlay that you were just discussing. Yeah, And I
mean because you know what what what you want to do.
What you want to do here is you want to
have the sweat and to add the sweat. You want
to have just the most. So if you if you
(52:26):
can convince me to add something, Man, I'm in because
I didn't want to let it out this weekend. Now
I know what you mean. You want to feel alive
again as as much as possible. But Davis, I am
so happy that all these leaks are back there Sara
games as well, so be on the lookout for those
and see if there's some great lines that you guys
can get out there. Um, good luck on your DFS
line ups, Davis. Hopefully you bring home some money there.
(52:49):
Other than that, everybody, thank you so much for watching
and enjoy the games. Today. Sports grid dot Com Betting
insights and entertainment at your fingertips seven as our team
covers the most important topics in sports wagering, real time odds,
predictive betting models, expert picks and more want the edge
than get on the grid. Sports grid dot com
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