Football Accumulator Tips: Cross-European 3/1 Treble

Another close call and another case of Espanyol spoiling our party last week with two out of three not quite cutting it.   

There's no Espanyol involved as a result for this week and instead we're in Bologna, Lisbon and Toulouse as we go in search of another 3-3-3 winner with Jamie Pacheco and his Cross-European Football Accumulator Tips...

*You can create your own Acca or follow James' selections over on our Football Accumulator Coupon page on betfred.com

Welcome to the 3-3-3 betting column. Why is it called that? Glad you asked.  It’s not a formation to play when you’ve had a man sent off but rather: 

• 3 - The number of different selections making up the acca. 
• 3 - The number of different (non-English) European Leagues the selections are taken from every week. 
• 3 - The minimum odds (3/1) or 4.0 if you prefer, that the acca will come to it every week. 

And it really is as simple as that. The selections can be from any betting markets, as long as they meet the criteria set out above.  And to round things off, every week I’ll leave you with a cool (or at least I think so) bit of trivia involving one of the teams featured in the acca. Simples... 

Last week, we got what the poker lot like to call a ’bad beat’. Has anyone ever had a good beat, instead? Napoli avoided defeat like we needed them to against Juventus and our old pal Gyokeres scored. Not once but twice, by the way.  

We just needed Real Madrid to beat Espanyol to nil and win easily they did, but not before they conceded the game’s opening goal.  

I’ve got no real (Real?) issue with that, but I certainly have an issue with the fact that it was an own goal by Real keeper Thibaut Courtois.  I don’t know what they talk about in that Real dressing room but surely the conversation should have been about the big Belgian keeping the ball out of his net rather than putting it in it.  

And that’s now twice in a row that an Espanyol result has cost us so it seems our column now has a bogey team. So our 2.19 point profit became just 1.19 points and we’re looking to improve on that. If Courtois will let us, that is.  

Bologna v Atalanta 

Saturday 28st September 19:45  

Selection: Both teams to score @ 4/6  

Bologna is a city perhaps best known for being the home of Bolognese sauce, a rich, tomato-based sauce eaten all over the world in its own right but also in such other dishes as lasagne or cannelloni.  

But Bologna, or its Serie A team in this case, are also rich in ‘both teams to score’ (BTTS) matches. Their results this season have been 1-1 and 1-1 (at home) and 3-0, 2-2 and 1-2 away.  

Atalanta are no BTTS slouches, if there is such a thing, either. It’s 3/5 for the season and going to back to the end of last season they were 4/5 in their last five on the road for goals at both ends.  

Things aren’t quite as comprehensive in matches between these two with just two of the last four between these two paying out BTTS backers but, no pun intended, any match involving Atalanta is a ‘recipe’ for attacking football and goals. There’s no Kevin Lasagne involved in this one (why would he be, he’s on loan at Bari) but we’re pretty confident these two can each conjure up at least one goal each.   

Benfica v Gil Vicente

Saturday September 28th 20:30 

Selection: Benfica to win and over 2.5 goals @ 4/6    

For some reason, when a manager is sacked in Portugal it’s called a ‘chicotada psicologica’ which translates as a ‘psychological whipping’.  

A bit more imaginative than ‘he got the sack’ which doesn’t make any sense at all in the first place because in all the years I’ve seen football managers (or anyone else for that matter) walking away from their job I’ve never seen them carry any sort of bag at all. At least ‘he got his P45’ makes sense because you do actually (whether physically or virtually) get that piece of paper when you leave a job.  

Anyway, the psychological whipping at Benfica had an instant impact because Bruno Lage, in his second spell at the club, has won all three of his matches since taking over: 4-1, 2-1 and 3-0.  

It’s not hard to see what those three results have in common: a win with at least three goals in the match. It’s a bet that would also have paid out in three of the last four games between them and this week’s opponents, Gil Vicente. Wins by 3-0, 3-2, 2-0, 3-1 if you were wondering.  

Lage clearly has his ideas about how we wants to play and it’s very much about being on the front foot and looking to score plenty rather than crawling over the line.  It helps that he’s got in Vangelis Pavlidis (no relation to the guy who composed the music for Chariots of Fire) a proven goalscorer who’s getting sharper and sharper by the game, scoring last week in that win over Boavista. Kerem Akturkoglu has been good too with four in eight.  

I wouldn’t want to predict the actual score here but Benfica have seen Gil Vicente as their whipping boys over the last few seasons and should really win here again; and it should be an open game, so that’s how we’re going about this.  

Toulouse v Lyon  

Sunday 29th September 14:00  

Selection: Over 9/5 corners @ 5/6  

One of these days the 3-3-3 column may feature a selection on Toulouse…to lose. But not today.  

Why worry about something as banal as who might win the match when we can focus on the number of corners in the match, instead?  

Whereas PSG games are good ones to go to these days if it’s goals you want to see, a trip to Toulouse may well appeal to corners aficionados, that most niche type of football fan. 

Looking at the over/under 9.5 corners market, two out of three of their home matches this season went ‘overs’. Last year’s stats show that 52% of their home matches had at least ten in them.  

A quick study of their opponents Lyon’s corner count fills us with confidence: they’re 2/2 away from home this season and 2/3 at home so you don’t need the abacus/calculator to work out that’s 4/5 from them for the campaign.  

Those away corner counts this season would have been extremely comfortable winners given there were 14 in their trip to Rennes and 13 away at Lens so they’re not passing the barrier as much as breaking it down with a sledgehammer.  

It's also four out of the last five that have gone over 9.5 corners in matches between them at Toulouse, going back to 2017/18, so plenty of numbers on our side to suggest we’ll be ok.  

James’ Fun Fact  

Despite having a glittering career at the likes of Juventus and AC Milan, Roberto Baggio saved his best scoring season for his sole one year spent at Bologna. He scored 22 goals that season, the highest-scoring Italian player that campaign and at one stage cut off his iconic ponytail, representing his ‘rebirth’. Quite as what, we don’t know.