Saturday Football Tips: A 3.23/1 Saturday European Treble

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New customers only. Deposit via Debit Card & place first bet £10+ (1/1+) on Sports in 7 days. £30 Sports & £20 Acca Free Bets within 10 hrs of settlement. 7-day expiry. Eligibility, payment excl. & T&Cs Apply.

Last year, the 3-3-3 column returned a profit of 17 points, which means that if you’d backed every treble recommended over the course of the season for level £10 stakes, you’d be up by £170. That’s one of the better returns you’ll see in the tipping business and speaking of returns, Jamie Pacheco is returning again this year to do try to do it all over again, and maybe even improve on it.   

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... 

2025-26 season Current P and L: +24.5 pts  

2024-25 season’s P and L: + 16.9     

So where were we with the 3-3-3 column just before the international break that seems like an eternity ago? Oh, yeah, we were winning again, for the second week in a row and this time at odds of 4.23. That takes our profit for the season up to +24.5 points.  

Time for some quick maths.  

There will be either 8 or 9 more columns till the end of the season, meaning the worst that can happen is that we end up with a profit of 15.5 if there are 9 and none of them win until the end of the season. That worst-case scenario would mean we’d end the first two seasons of 3-3-3 with profits of 16.9 and 15.5 points, respectively, which are remarkable numbers even if I say so myself. 

And by the way, that really is the worst-case scenario because I'd be incredibly disappointed if we don’t find at least two more winners till the end of the season, hopefully starting this week.  

For the record, Elche v Mallorca last week was tight with all three goals we needed for ‘overs’ coming in the second half but we got there in the end. The other two won pretty comfortably.  

Let’s try and make it three in a row.  

• Lazio v Parma  
• Saturday April 4 19:45  
• Back Under 9.5 corners @ 8/11 

It’s not often the odds-compilers get something wrong in terms of pricing but I think this one is a good example of just that.  

It’s true that they’ve recognized that ‘unders’ should be the favorite here in the 9.5 corners market, but shouldn’t it be considered shorter than 8/11?  

Let’s consider the stats.  

66.7% of Lazio home games have gone under 9.5 corners including four of the last five.   

As for Parma, it’s a whopping 73% of their games that have had 9 corners or less away from home, and the fact it’s 67% on the road backs up the idea that Parma games aren’t the ones to go to if you like seeing corners.  

4 of the last 5 between them have had 9 corners or less so that’s further evidence we should get very few corners in this one.   

• Atletico Madrid v Barcelona          
• Saturday 4th April 20:00  
• Back over 2.5 goals @ 4/9  

Gone are the days of the cagey Atletico Madrid under Diego Simeone having one of the tightest defenses v4in the world and grinding out 1-0s or taking 1-1 when it suited them.  

Quite what has changed over the last few years is up for debate but what isn’t up for debate is that this particular fixture has been full of goals.  

Here are the last 8 results between them across La Liga and Spanish Cup games, most recent first: 3-0, 4-0, 3-1, 0-1, 2-4, 4-4, 1-2, 0-3.  

So that’s all of the last 3 that went over 2.5 goals, and 6 of the last 8, with five of those 8 having over 3.5 goals come in.  

Further evidence suggests ‘overs’ are a feature of both teams’ games even when they’re not playing each other. Atletico are 53% when at home for games with three or more goals in them while Barcelona have a 71% strike rate when away and a staggering 86% one when at home.  

The odds-compilers, of course, aren’t giving too much away. They’re probably just as aware of all these numbers as we are, but 1.44 is still acceptable for something that all statistics suggest will happen.  

• Porto v Famalicao  
• Saturday 4th April 20:30 
• Back Porto to win and under 3.5 goals @ 10/11  

We’ll keep this one pretty simple.  

Should Porto win this match? Yes, they should. They’ve won 11 of their 13 games this season at home, the only ones they didn’t win being at home to the other members of the Big 3: Benfica and Sporting, drawing them both.  

Though Famalicao are having a good campaign, currently sixth, they’ve lost here in Porto in six of their last seven visits.  

As for the under 3.5 goals part, we should be pretty safe. Just 15% of Famalicao’s away games have had over 3.5 goals in them and it’s just 23% for Porto home games.  

So Porto should win, yes, but not with many goals in the game.  

Jamie’s Fun Fact  

Diego Simeone is best known among English football fans for playing his part in that famous sending off of David Beckham at the 1998 World Cup.  

But he’s not adverse to a red card of his own…as a manager. 

He’s been sent off seven times in his career, putting him in second place.  He has plenty of work to do to catch up with the Manager Ranked Number 1: Jose Mourinho, who has 15!