The £10 to £10k Challenge: Real Madrid and Barcelona to provide goals

After the early-game scrapes of the previous £10 to £10k challenge, I got things off to a winning start this time around in fairly serene fashion courtesy of over 1.5 goals in the Chelsea v Newcastle match.

My proclivity for picking a winner had got me into a pickle when the USA Women’s U20s failed to beat their Chinese counterparts at the Women’s U20 World Cup in Japan, so for the revised version of the challenge, I opted to explore more markets than just the odds-on result.

And after Roberto Di Matteo’s slick Blues comfortably saw off the timid Toon Army, I am keen to get involved with the goals per game market once again.

The logic at the weekend was fairly self-explanatory in that between Chelsea’s Duke of Hazard-themed attack and their iffy defence there was always going to be at least two goals in the game and that duly occurred courtesy of my favourite Belgian since Tin-Tin.

In Real’s last 34 fixtures at the Bernabeu, the champions have registered an incredible 122 goals and conceded 38, and the over 1.5 goals bet would have come in an impressive 33 times.

Like any bet, things could have gone awry. But in modern football matches, which on average tend to see over two goals per game scored, there’s no need to nail your colours to a mast if there’s ample opportunity for net bulges to take the risk away from picking the result.

My next bet of the £10k challenge illustrates this concept perfectly.

Real Madrid welcome Barcelona to the Santiago Bernabeu tonight trailing 3-2 from the first leg of the Spanish Supercopa after an action-packed affair at the Camp Nou last Thursday.

You could slide a cigarette paper between bwin’s 3Way odds of 31/20 for the Real win, with Barcelona at 3/2 and the draw at 13/5, and those prices reflect the overall impressions of two sides who are so evenly matched and are yet to play at full tilt so far this season.

Los Blancos have started their defence of La Liga with just a point from two games, coupled with the defeat to their Catalan cousins last week, and Barca themselves needed a late brace from Lionel Messi to avoid a shock reverse away to Osasuna on Sunday.

In games between the two powerhouses of Spanish football, it’s safe to expect the unexpected as the form book goes out of the window and over a century of tribal rivalry bubbles to the surface. However, one thing you can bank on is goals, more goals and plenty of goals.

In the last eight El Clasico clashes, there have been 30 strikes at over three per game, with both sides registering at least once on each occasion – and I reckon we’re in for more of the same tonight.

It may only be a waxed-up version of the Community Shield but there’s no community spirit between these two. Both want the first piece of domestic silverware on offer this term and more to the point, neither will be contemplating the prospect of ceding the early-season bragging rights to the other.

Bwin have it at 17/100 that Real will score at least once and 3/20 that Barca will do likewise. It’s 2/5 that both teams will score in the match and 3/25 that there will be over 1.5 goals in total and following on from my Chelsea-Newcastle punt coming in, I’m going to tread the same route this evening.

In Real’s last 34 fixtures at the Bernabeu, the champions have registered an incredible 122 goals and conceded 38, and the over 1.5 goals bet would have come in an impressive 33 times.

Having a sift back through past Clasicos in the capital, there has also been two goals or more in the past 22 meetings, so my £11.80 accumulated from the first bet is going on over 1.5 goals in this at 3/25 and will return £13.22 if succesful.

Bet 2: Over 1.5 goals in Real Madrid v Barcelona @ 3/25

Current balance: £11.80
Potential balance: £13.22

New customers registering with bwin receive a free £20 bet and you can put that on over 170 different individual bets on tonight’s Supercopa Clasico or many, many more fixtures from around the world.