Pinnacle with too high odds here (the market average is 1,86) and so the Over is worth a small punt for me. HSV will be highly motivated against this big name, but they miss their regular keeper Rost for this match and his substitute Wolfgang Hesl is not of the same quality. Also, something their coach Jol admitted, this game comes too early really. HSV has 2 trainings camps planned. Currently they are in Dubai, but the more important one takes place in La Manga next week. I have my doubts over the friendly mentality of Milan, but Beckham will play tomorrow and will surely want to prove a point in the short time where he is with the AC. AC Milans coach Ancelotti on the other hand wants to "show the qualities of Milan, entertain the public and win" so also taking into account that both teams are not in full swing yet, that both have a solid (HSV) to great (Milan) offense, but also show a certain leakyness concerning their defense goals could be on the card here....

Hi all.

Since some games in Wales and lower Scotland I could like this weekend are in serious danger of being called off due to frozen pitches (on thursday ALL games in Wales got cancelled, already today 2 scottish matches from saturday were postponed) I will place them last minute if at all, so they are no blog material. Instead I will treat you to some links I personally find quite useful:

http://www58.spbo.com/elive.htm (a usually reliable and very fast live score, especially users of www.livescore.com or www.soccerstand.com will love the update speed here)

http://www.sleague.com/ (a nice info portal for the exotic S.League, a crazy division for totals)

http://www.low.org.uk/ (solid news portal for the league of Wales, which is "famous" for unreal scorelines like 6:5)

http://www.betvirus.com/home/ (a good overview of form, trends and other stuff)

http://www.betdevil.com/myhome.php (the best stats side around, many neat features are only available if you apply for payed membership though)

Ho, ho, ho dear readers (I know you are out there, *g*), I want to wish you all a nice, peaceful christmas with the one or other fine present. Stay healthy and keep winning, :-).

And Feyenoord lost again. This time in the Uefa Cup today. Not the most important game for them, since they couldnt reach the next round anyway anymore, but another blow for the confidence, which is low after a dire season with bad results,severe injury problems and not the best internal situation (not too long ago some players spoke out against their coach, who still enjoys relative safety due to the current financial background of the club). Before the game against Lech veteran striker Makaay described the situation like this: "Everyone is physically and mentally cut up by this situation. On Wednesday we have an extra match to try to get a positive result. That match is of no further importance because we are already out of the UEFA Cup. However, we are going to go out to register a good result, because we need to boost our confidence with PSV waiting on Sunday."

That boost of confidence did not come (FT 0:1), but still they "had" to play another match, while PSV will be well rested on sunday. The situation in Eindhoven is also far from perfect, they lost quality before the season, their coach had his share of problems with players as well, but at least at home they have been quite reliable so far: 7 games played, 6 wins, 1 draw with a goal tally of 17:5 is "solid". Feyenoord away managed just one win so far + 2 draws and 4 defeats. Despite the extra motivation Feyenoord will surely have in this game and although I dont trust the current PSV too much, home form, confidence (Eindhoven is unbeaten in 4 league games and showed good morale in Heerenveen and vs. Groningen. They were down 0:2 in both matches, but still managed a draw and a win in the end), squad situation (at least currently the injury list of Feyenoord is still much longer) and recent history (including Super Cup 3 home wins in a row for PSV) point to a win of the home team...

There is a big quality difference between these teams (like with all top teams in Austria vs. the low ones). Graz is home strong (7-3-0, 26: 5 goals), Altach is a living punching ball away (0-1-9, 10:36). After some small live signs mid november they are back to their old self: An 1:8-defeat at Rapid was followed by a 2:5 home loss vs. average Kärnten. To make things worse they are missing 11 players today (old diva Ailton for example, who despite his personality shortcomings at least still has goals in him), while the squad situation in Graz is near perfect. In October Graz beat them 6:0, in their homer before that 6:1. So even this HC seems well beatable, but there is one downside: The weather is quite bad there right now (heavy rain) and there is even the danger that the game will be called off. And if it will take place, the technically much better team Graz could suffer from the deep ground or isnt in the mood for "wet games" of this kind, ;-).

I am not too fond of Hamburg playing wise. But it is hard to see past their home form (6 wins + a draw vs. Schalke is quite respectable). Many of those games were hard fought for, but they have "life insurance" Petric up front and at least know how to grind out results. Their opponent Frankfurt was the team of extremes lately: At home they trashed their recent opponents Bochum and Hannover with 4:0, on the road on the other hand they had had to live with bitter defeats (0:5 in Bremen, 0:4 in Dortmund). Hard to see them avoid another one on saturday: They still carry a big injury list and midweek 5 players had to do punitive training, cause their coach Funkel was unpleased with their attidude. The squad situation of HSV is not perfect (especially defense wise, Demel misses out, Reinhardt and Silva are doubtful), but the team they can field seems good enough to achieve another victory against their favourite opponent (history wise no Bundesliga team took more losses in Hamburg then Frankfurt, in the last 2 years they had to travel back with 1:4 and 1:3 defeats). Taking into account the squad situations, recent history and results next to the home win goals are also quite likely, so I will split my stake between the „1“ and the „Over“.

I am not too fond of Hamburg playing wise. But it is hard to see past their home form (6 wins + a draw vs. Schalke is quite respectable). Many of those games were hard fought for, but they have "life insurance" Petric up front and at least know how to grind out results. Their opponent Frankfurt was the team of extremes lately: At home they trashed their recent opponents Bochum and Hannover with 4:0, on the road on the other hand they had had to live with bitter defeats (0:5 in Bremen, 0:4 in Dortmund). Hard to see them avoid another one on saturday: They still carry a big injury list and midweek 5 players had to do punitive training, cause their coach Funkel was unpleased with their attidude. The squad situation of HSV is not perfect (especially defense wise, Demel misses out, Reinhardt and Silva are doubtful), but the team they can field seems good enough to achieve another victory against their favourite opponent (history wise no Bundesliga team took more losses in Hamburg then Frankfurt, in the last 2 years they had to travel back with 1:4 and 1:3 defeats). Taking into account the squad situations, recent history and results next to the home win goals are also quite likely, so I will split my stake between the „1“ and the „Over“.

2 big names in Spain, but only one big team at the moment. The other one bears more similarity to a dwarf right now. The big team of course is Barcelona. The first 2 games of the season went disappointing, but after that they switched into "Kick ass" mode and declassed most of their opponents with an amazing ease (their new coach really brought fresh life into them). Real Madrid is the other extreme. They had a good last year, but already then Schusters team was not too convincing for large parts of the season and won many games by morale, late punches and other stuff like that. This year they lost quality, seem to miss the traditional luck, are plagued by injuries and have bad weeks behind them. The recent games of Barcelona and Real vs. solid Sevilla are a good indicator as well. Barca cruised to an more less easy 3:0 away in Sevilla, while on sunday Real Madrid lost at home to the same team with 3:4. They were down 1:3 early, then showed spirit, made it level, before losing Robben and the game in the end. Marcelo will also miss the next match, Nistelrooy is still injured, and Pepe, Gabriel Heinze, Mahamadou Diarra + Ruben de la Red are also likely too miss the game on saturday, so next to the general bad state the squad situation is „unhealthy“. Concerning the current Barca it doesnt seem to matter who plays (Messi maybe excluded). After all they missed reliable goal scorer Eto´o in their game vs. Valencia on saturday. They still trashed em with 4:0, and suddenly even "problem child" Henry finally exploded again and scored 3. In the past seasons Barcelona had problems in this special game and is without a win in the last 3 homers vs. Real (0:1, 3:3 and 1:1), but I expect that to change next weekend. Even Schuster is far from optimistic quite early on (I doubt he wants to give Barca a false feeling of safety): ""That game (against Barcelona) concerns me less than any other game. Right now it's not possible to win at the Nou Camp, Barcelona are in great form and demolishing teams, and I think this is going to be their year. We could play a good game there, but anything more than that I cannot say." Under normal circumstances the prices/lines would be too low respectively high, but right now the gulf between these teams is very big and so seem worth a medium bet to me.

Update: Real fired their coach Schuster today and got Juande Ramos as replacement. I doubt that he can do miracles to this mess of a team in short time, so Barcelona should still nick it....

The home win here looks like a no brainer on first sight, but still I will keep the stake low due to some downsides. Let us start with the positive aspects: Wolfsburg is an amazing team - at least at home. There they achieved 6 wins and one draw in 7 games and "killed" their latest opponents Stuttgart, Cottbus, Gladbach and Bielefeld with impressive score lines of 4:1, 3:0, 3:0 and 4:1. Hannover on the other hand is a disappointment so far. By (offensive) potential they could have well been a surprise of the season, but a mixture of severe injuries and an even more severe away weakness cost them dear up to now. The numbers of "tragedy" in short: 7 away games, 1 draw, 6 losses and an "impressive" goal tally of 2:19 says it all really. Today they will still miss their regular keeper Enke (his replacement, although talented, has been far from reliable) and new signing Schlaudraff, who sometimes comes across as arrogant and unfocused, but who can make a difference on a good day. So far, so good. 3 small "problems" come to mind as well though: Wolfsburg still misses their striker Grafite, who was on fire before his injury, this is a derby and Wolfsburg could be a little tired after their Uefa-Cup-game against Portsmouth on thursday, while Hannover is well rested. But taking into account things like great home strength on one side vs. lousy away performances on the other, the greater class Wolfsburg posseses + the good H2H (4 wins in the last 5 home games against Hannover) we still have a solid bet on our hand...