Rugby Union Betting Guide
Tuesday, May 5th, 2009
The UEFA European Football Championship is held ever four years during the summer months when the domestic football leagues around Europe have their break. Unsurprisingly the competition consists of team made up from Europe who qualify for the competition by finishing first or second in one of seven qualifying groups. The football authorities seed the teams and then draw the groups, so this means the big boys of European football are kept apart until the later rounds.
Betting on the championship is ideal as it is two years from the last Football World Cup and two years before the next one. So it gives the opportunity for people to bet on a major football tournament in the preceding years between World Cups.
The competition begins in a league format. Four groups of four are drawn and then the top two teams after three matches go on to the quarter-finals, where the competition develops in to a knockout tournament.
There are plenty of opportunities to bet on the Euro Championships. Anyone one of a number of the top teams could win the tournament. One of the pre-tournament favorites does usually win the trophy. They are installed as favorites before the competition so the odds on them winning can be short in some cases. However there have been a couple of major shocks in the championships. Greece amazingly won the tournament in 2004 after overcoming the much fancied Portugal in the final. They were 150-1 to win Euro 2004 before it kicked off. And even more shockingly Denmark won in 1992. The Danes were only in the competition as Yugoslavia had to pull out due to the Yugoslav War.
You could also place a bet on who will end up as the top scorer. The top scorers for the past few championships have been Spain’s David Villa (4 in 2008), Czechoslovakia’s Milan Baros (5 in 2004), Serbia’s Savo Milosevic and the Netherland’s Patrick Kluivert (5 in 1998). So the top scorer does not score a crazy amount of goals. In fact the maximum number of games a player can play in the championship is six. So your best bet to pick the top scorer would be a team likely to go far in the competition as they have more opportunities to score. However the competition is tough in the final stages and as such scoring in the game can sometimes be low. So a good bet would be to look for a group with a couple of weaker teams in, who are likely to ship a lot of goals. Then find the star team in that group and then bet on their star striker to score the most goals in the European Football Championships. They do not have to be the favourites or even one of the best teams in the competition.