2006 World Cup Betting Trends Recap

2006 World Cup Betting Trends Recap

The 2006 World Cup drew millions of fans to Germany or their television screens in the summer of 2006. The World cup finals were played across two months and featured 32 teams vying for the grand prize, the FIFA World Cup trophy. The FIFA World Cup tournament was in Germany in 2006. The 2006 World Cup finals are one of the most memorable because of the events between Italy and France. The French and Italian oppositions were equal at a 1-1 draw, taking the teams into extra time. Materazzi received a head butt from Zidane, which sent the latter off, and France finished the game with ten men. Italy lifted the FIFA World Cup trophy for the fourth time in the country’s history and the first time in the last 24 years.

Draws

Quite often, matches such as the finals in the World Cup tend to end in draw results as teams tend to play a more conservative style of soccer. Making wagers on betting markets that include draw results or stakes on draw outcomes can be profitable for punters.

Golden Boot

Klose, the German striker, won the golden boot award after scoring five goals in the 2006 World Cup tournament. Other players with three goals scored in the tournament include Crespo, Rodriguez, Ronaldo, Henry, Zidane, Podolski, Torres, and Villa.

Yashin Award (Golden Glove)

The Yashin award is for the tournament’s best keeper or the keeper with the cleanest sheets. The winner of the Yashin award in 2006 was Buffon, the veteran Italian keeper. Another Italian who makes the list of the most man-of-the-match awards is Andrea Pirlo. Italy finished in 1st, France in 2nd, Germany in 3rd, and Portugal in 4th. Brazil, Argentina, England, and Ukraine lost in the quarter-finals round and finished from 5th to 8th. All the teams in positions 1st to 8th were countries from Europe or South America. The top-4 teams were all European teams signifying European dominance in football then.

Cards

The 2006 World Cup tournament produced the highest number of red and yellow cards in a match. The tournament’s referees brandished over 28 red cards and 345 yellow cards. It eliminated four players in a single game between the Netherlands and Portugal, with 16 players warned. Portugal won the game but couldn’t field two players on red cards serving their suspension from the previous game. No other last World Cup produced the volume of cards that the 2006 tournament made.

Average Goals Per Game

The average goals scored per game is a good indicator of how teams fared during a tournament. While most World Cups tend to produce high and low plans, the 2006 FIFA World Cup had fewer goals than previous tournaments. No player scored three goals (or a hat-trick) in a single game. Punters that made wagers on low-scoring games or bets on teams to produce fewer goals made a profit during the 2006 World Cup.

Wagers Based On Seeding

Seeding is a vital ranking system that helps determine team positions based on the tournament’s probability of winning. The seeding system uses data and performance from previous World Cups to select a team’s rank. For the 2006 finals, they expect Brazil to win the tournament after lifting the 2002 finals after defeating Germany. Alternatively, if a section fails to qualify for a World Cup tournament, the team may go unseeded for the next World Cup tournament. Punters rarely use seeding in football as the only metric to make wagers since the calculation of seeded teams can be flawed. A country that wins or loses a World Cup will most likely field a different squad after 3 World Cups (or 12 years).

Accumulator Wagers

Several punters place accumulator wagers on different matches across group stages, knockout matches, and the finals. However, acca wagers are hard to predict and even harder to win. Only a few punters that made accumulator wagers during the 2006 World Cup walked away highly profitable. A majority of the punters that made accumulator wagers lost their bets. The only consolation for accumulator bettors was losing a relatively low value in the acca wager.