Weekend Football Tips: 3.09/1 shot coming your way

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. Read on for his Weekend Football Tips.

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: +18.35 pts

2024-25 season’s P and L: + 16.9

No joy again last week, with only the first bet, the shortest price of the three, coming in. So, a couple of weeks without a winner but as you can see from the P and L for the year – currently 18.35 in profit – we’re still very much ‘playing with the bookies’ money’ as a friend of mine used to put it. Let’s try and win some more of the bookies’ money, then.

Saturday, March 7 (11:30)

Lecce vs Cremonese - Back Under 2.5 Goals @ 1/2

If you’re planning on having a heavy Saturday night out, then don’t worry too much about getting up at 11.30 (strange time for a Serie match) and watching this match, because it’s highly unlikely to be a good one.

Or at least it’s not likely to have many goals.

Cremonese have a 57% strike rate for under 2.5 goals, as do Lecce at home. It’s a shame that Lecce aren’t away for it because they’re 77% for ‘unders’ games on the road, but that just further backs up the idea that they don’t like high-scoring games.

Let’s hope this one goes to form.

Sunday, March 8 (18:00)

Benfica vs Porto - Back Benfica or Draw on the Double Chance market @ 3/10

This match has been previewed by me elsewhere on the site, and I made the point that I didn’t want to back/tip the selection above as a single just because I don’t really believe a tipster should be doing so at those prices.

But this isn’t a single, it’s part of an acca so it’s a very different story as far as I’m concerned.

I don’t think a 3/10 shot needs a huge amount of justification but here we are anyway: Benfica have beaten Porto the last three times they’ve played them here at the Estadio da Luz and have been extremely good these last few weeks with three wins on the spin in the league and a brave and impressive display against Real Madrid, though they did go out against them.

Porto, on the other hand, haven’t been so good as they’re badly missing star striker and top scorer, Samu.  They lost to Sporting in midweek and love him or hate him (I won’t say which in my case), this is just the sort of match Jose Mourinho will be preparing for better than anyone.

1-1 would be my idea of how it ends, and that, of course, would do us just fine.

Sunday, March 8 (20:00)

Valencia vs Alaves - Back both teams to score @ 11/10

Assuming the treble is still alive by the time we get to this one, this is going to be the hardest one ‘on paper’ to come good for us.

And by ‘on paper’ I mean simply that it’s the one at the biggest odds.

I’ve said before that this column isn’t about betting value as such, it’s about finding as many winners at 3/1 or bigger as possible over the course of the season (which of course, we have done, just look at the P and L). That said, I think it’s extremely important and valuable to be backing something at 11/10 that I think should be about 8/11 just because it gives us more freedom as regards the other bets.

And this one is a case in point. Alaves have a 69% strike rate for BTTS matches this season at home, including four of their last five, and are up against a team   with a 54% BTTS strike rate away from home, including goals at both ends in five of their last seven.

Don’t those somewhat raw figures suggest it should be odds-on? I think so.

Especially when you consider that seven of the last eight at Alaves between these two had BTTS. Two of the last four ended 2-2 by the way.

It looks such a wrong price that I’d consider it as a single.

Jamie’s Fun Fact

Jose Mourinho should know this fixture very well. This is his second spell in charge at Benfica and of course, he was at Porto for two and a half years shortly after leaving Benfica the first-time round.

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Jamie Pacheco predominantly covers Cricket and European Football for us at Betfred Insights. You can check out his Football Betting Tips, along with those from the rest of the team, at our Football hub page...