Red Bulls look to cool Fire, improve playoff position

Soccer Betting Lines

09/14/2007 - Bridgeview, IL (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Red Bull New York and the Chicago Fire square off for the third and final time this season in a Major League Soccer fixture Saturday at Toyota Park.

The teams just played each other on Sept. 1 - a 1-0 New York win at Giants Stadium - so there should be little mystery involved with this game.

The Fire will probably pack it in, in an effort to limit the Red Bulls chances while using its talented trio of attackers - Chris Rolfe, Cuauhtemoc Blanco and Paulo Wanchope - in a counter-attacking role and on set pieces.

"Their focus as a group is they establish a block of players that are very hard to break down," New York coach Bruce Arena said. "They have seven or eight players behind the ball which makes it hard to play against them. It's no secret that the games they play are generally 1-0. I think there is a reason for that. I think they do a pretty good job of trying to keep Wanchope, Blanco and Rolfe up high and try and bring defenders. They try to take advantage of the opportunities they get the run of play on the counter attack. They can be very offensive at times, they have the ability to go forward with such fine players as Wanchope, Blanco and Rolfe."

That strategy has worked well in recent games for the Fire, who have crept into the eighth and final playoff spot with seven games remaining since the addition of Blanco, among others.

"They have been able to bring in a number of players, specifically Blanco, Wanchope and now with the addition of (defender) Wilman Conde," Arena said. "I think they are very good players. Over the last five or six games they have gotten a number of points and some good results. I think they are a good team."

The Red Bulls needed a Juan Pablo Angel goal on one of their only chances in the game to earn the victory over the Fire in their last meeting. That victory has helped New York stay in a strong position to make the playoffs. It is currently in the sixth position, four points up on Chicago.

"It is extremely disappointing that at the end we limited Juan (Pablo Angel) to one chance and it was a goal and we also limited (Dane) Richards to one cross the whole game," Chicago coach Juan Carlos Osorio said after the New York loss. "They didn't have many goal scoring opportunities so it was disappointing. We know that we can play better offensively and we need to create more chances and just keep working. Hopefully, when we play them back at our place, it will be a different game."

The teams are coming off opposite results in their most recent fixtures, with New York being dominated 3-0 at CD Chivas USA and the Fire earning a 1-0 victory at Columbus, thanks to a goal by Wanchope.

"All week we worked very hard on the tactical side of things because we knew that today could be the decisive moment for us," Osorio said. "I think it worked well for us today. We limited a very good team going forward to few chances and we waited patiently for our chance and when it came our way, Paulo [Wanchope] put it in very well."

"It was one of those games," Arena said of the Chivas loss. "I guess we obviously shot ourselves on the foot. Give them credit, they capitalized on the mistakes we made, they won the game. I think we actually played pretty well in spurts and it was a very lopsided score given the quality of play. I think we created most of the chances in the game and made some individual mistakes that resulted in goals."

The Red Bulls will look to rebound Saturday, and could welcome back injured striker Jozy Altidore, who has been out since before the last Chicago fixture with what the team is calling "a lower left leg injury."

"He is day-to-day. We haven't made any decision on him at this time," Arena said Thursday.

The New York midfield could also see a shakeup. Dema Kovalenko, one of the better two-way players on the team, has seen limited action this season with injuries and after a recent car accident, but should be fit to see extended minutes Saturday.

"We haven't decided on a lineup for the game, but Dema could play more than he did in the last game," Arena said.

Also, midfielder Clint Mathis, who is third on the team in scoring behind Angel and Altidore, could miss the game because of personal reasons.

"(He's) day-to-day with personal reasons. I'm not going to get into it, it is a family thing," Arena added.

The Fire will be without midfielder Justin Mapp with an ankle injury while midfielders Chris Armas and Ivan Guerrero should play even though they are nursing injuries.

After Saturday's fixture, New York hosts Eastern rival New England next Saturday while Chicago travels to Dallas on Thursday.

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College Football Betting Tips From a Pro

While the NFL is the sport wagered on the heaviest, college football betting lines has become more and more popular as people realize it’s a game that can be beat. The NCAA football season gets longer each year with the addition of numerous bowl games and with that comes more opportunities for more money in your pocket, if handled correctly.

Betting on college football is not the same as with the NFL, so make sure you separate the two. Because of the vast number of teams, the parity between college football programs is slight and thus, you are going to see some high numbers in the NCAA. Teams favored by more than 40 points are not uncommon especially early in the season when teams playing their non-conference schedules.

The best advice when trying to tackle these enormous spreads and is to just stay away. A team that is favored by 40 points is favored by that many for a reason while teams getting 40 points are bad enough that they shouldn’t be touched. Set yourself a spread limit. Getting rid of these games will cut down on the number of contests that you need to handicap while staying away from backdoor or front-door covers.

What is a backdoor and front-door cover you ask? A backdoor cover is a team that is getting beat by more than the spread, but scores late to get within that number thus covering the spread. A front-door cover is just the opposite where the favorite scores late and covers the number they are favored by.

These front-door and backdoor covers are common when second and third string players enter games in college football and it can be the worst nightmare for some bettors. These players can also be your best friend, but ask any bettor and he will give you more instances on losing in this situation than winning. It just seems to work out that way even though everything evens out in the end.

College football betting has some of the softest lines of any sport and it’s being able to find these lines that will make you a successful college football handicapper. The NFL and NBA have the tightest lines around and while those sports can be beat by looking at situations and systems, college football doesn’t quite work that way. It’s much more manual, but when done correctly, it’s much more gratifying as well.

Getting into the nuts and bolts of college football means looking at the many stats in order to beat the number. As opposed to pro football, college football is less dependent on situations and angles and more on certain statistics. Rushing offense and defense, pass efficiency offense and defense and turnover margins are huge. These are vital in the NFL, but even more so when it comes to college football.

Being able to run the ball in college football has always been a key factor in the overall success of a team. The same adage also goes for teams who have the ability to stop the run. Putting these two factors together can produce some positive results in a team’s record both straight up and against the spread. These numbers show huge differences in teams and the spread may not take those into effect, which is where the value comes into play.

Passing yardage numbers both for and against can be a misinterpreted statistic. However, pass efficiency has always been one of the best ways to look at a teams’ passing game ability both offensively and defensively. But is it really a true indication of how they perform? I wouldn’t say so since they are raw passing numbers with nothing else taken into consideration.

I use pass efficiency ratings when doing my handicapping but I adjust my numbers based on a number of factors including power ratings, strength of schedules, personnel and injuries. This gives a much better picture of a team’s ability to pass effectively and also being able to defend the pass. Tweaking pass efficiency stats instead of raw passing yards is the key.

Turnovers are the single most frustrating, and at times the most gratifying, aspect of a college football lines, mostly because they are so unpredictable. They are part of the game and most of the time nothing can be done to control them. However, turnovers are contagious and they can carry over from game to game and season to season.

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As you can see, college football handicapping is very labor intensive and isn’t just based on where teams are ranked in the AP and coaches polls. Experience, coaching and match-ups are all important since unlike the NFL, college teams turn over much more often with new personnel at most positions every single year. Keeping current on this information is vital.

Betting NCAA football can be lucrative if done correctly, but more importantly, it’s just plain enjoyable because it can be beat. College football is one of the best sports to watch with some of the best rivalries taking place in all of sports. The only downfall is that a championship isn’t decided on the field but on a computer-based system that is the Bowl Championship Series. That will change someday and we will all be better off for it.

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