Weekend Football Accumulator Tips: 3.12/1 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: +17.35pts  

2024-25 season's P and L: + 16.9pts

Given it was Cheltenham this week, it's quite fitting to say we fell at the first hurdle last week with Lecce v Cremonese producing three goals when we needed the game to stay under 2.5 goals. A lot of stats suggested it was going to be a low-scoring match, but of course, after that first whistle, the stats only mean so much, and it's footballers, not robots, playing the game out there.   

And it's a shame that first selection didn't come in because the other two did, Benfica fighting back to draw the game 2-2 after being 2-0 down (we had Benfica or draw on the Double Chance market) and Alaves v Valencia, the biggest priced selection of the three at 11/10 finishing 3-2 when we just needed both teams to score.  

But that's just the way it goes, and we are, of course, still showing a big profit. Let's try to add to that.   

• Napoli v Lecce        
• Saturday 14th March 17:00  
• Back both teams to score @ 7/4  

Let's cut to the chase; this first selection is a big risk. The big clue is in the fact that it's 7/4, whereas most of the selections in the 3-3-3 column tend to be around the 1/2, 4/6 mark.  

But as ever, there are good reasons for it. The first reason is that if this one comes good, we have an excellent chance of landing the treble as the other two selections will be at much shorter prices than this one (and still come to at least 3/1) because we're taking the big risk with this one. Regular readers of this column will be well aware of this as I mention it a lot but those who are a bit new to this all, won't. But back to the selection itself.  

Napoli have a 69% strike rate for both teams to score matches so that's a good starting point. Lecce, unfortunately, doesn't. It's down at 30% in away matches and that goes a long way to explaining why BTTS here is at the price that it is, rather than say 4/6 or 10/11.  

But there's more good news if we delve deeper. Napoli's last three home games have ended 2-1, 2-2 and 2-1 and the last of those was against Torino, who are just one place above Lecce in the table.   

In other words: all is not well in Napoli's defence, even against the somewhat weaker teams in the division. 

It's also worth remembering that it was Lecce's two goals against Cremonese last week (albeit at home) that went a long way to downing our 'unders' bet so they're capable of scoring. And yet another good omen is that the last time they were on the road, they scored in a 3-1 defeat at Como, so let's hope they can manage it again.  

• Arouca v Benfica  
• Saturday 14th March 20:30  
• Back Over 1.5 Benfica (Away) Goals 4/11  

Over in Portugal, Benfica have certainly been scoring plenty of goals. As we know, they got two against Porto last week and that's no mean feat because Porto are the meanest defence in the league. 

If we exclude Benfica's two games against a good Real Madrid side in the recent Champions League Playoff round, they scored at least two goals in all of their other five matches, drawing a blank against Tondela in the one before those.   

But in the two matches before that, they beat Estrela 4-0 and Real 4-2 (in the Group Stages). 

Arouca have conceded 53 goals in 25 matches so far, only bottom club AVS have conceded more, so you'd think Benfica will manage two.  

Especially when their last four matches away at Arouca ended 2-0, 3-0, 2-0 and 3-0 to Benfica.   

• Barcelona v Sevilla  
• Sunday 15th March 15:15 
• Back Over 1.5 Goals @ 1/10

Thanks to that big-priced selection in the Napoli match, the first two selections already meet the criteria of coming to 3/1 or bigger, but of course, the 3-3-3 rules are the rules, and we need to include a third selection.  

Barcelona have an 100%(!) strike rate when it comes to their home games this season in La Liga going over 1.5 goals so I think it's fair to say that we'd have to be pretty unlucky for something that has happened 13 (home) games in a row to not happen here.  

Opponents Sevilla have an 84% strike rate for away games with over 1.5 goals so that's a good sign, too.  

This fixture ended 5-1 last season, by the way. 

Jamie's Fun Fact  

15 different players have scored for Barcelona in La Liga this season, which goes some way to explaining why their matches have so many goals. All of Lamine Yamal, Ferran Torres and Robert Lewandowski have passed the 10-goal mark in La Liga with 14, 12 and 11 goals respectively.