Arbusers

Currently Atlético Aldosivi vs Atlético Sarmiento, the second half is in progress.
The common Logic, based on regular viewing of Argentine elite Soccer, as well as oddsmakers' implied probabilities, tells us that things in this League tend to happen a certain way within a given probability interval.
For example, the pre-match published odds about the BTTS 1st Half market are at a much higher level than a plethora of matches across Europe and there is a strong reason for that.
However, I'm a bit skeptical about the exact playing manner of the pitch, wherethrough both the Atlético Aldosivi & Atlético Sarmiento overcame the BTTS 1stHalf deciding level at the very beginning of today's match. Not to comment on the four scored goals in the 1stHalf, but again I don't mind the odds (implied probabilities respectively, everything is possible and has respective pre-calculated probabilities), I just watch weird errors and passes for that level of quality for that División. Year-after-year impressions of that División.
But I could also be wrong due to fatigue from a long business day, who knows...

The most elegant approach to scoring goals in South American Soccer in action:


youtube.com/watch?v=tSSXVxyKiic

arb12 wrote: ↑

Tue Mar 04, 2025 5:23 pm

The most elegant approach to scoring goals in South American Soccer in action:


youtube.com/watch?v=tSSXVxyKiic

South American is crazy in all ways

Few days ago, in Brazil Campeonato Catarinense, guest scored a winning goal in last kick of the game, 95th minute. Referee counted goal and instant blow final whistle. After game finished he changed his mind and goal canceled

Check the video at 2.20:30

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ceg3dWAeefs&t=8788s

Bookies paid 0-1 but they recalculate it few days after. Of course, i was on over 0.5

https://soesporte.com.br/arbitro-anula- ... -catarina/

''The last round of the Campeonato Catarinense, which took place on Saturday (22), was marked by a refereeing controversy in the duel between Caravaggio and Barra, at Estádio da Montanha. The match was tied until injury time, when Natan scored the goal that would qualify Barra for the quarterfinals of the championship. The goal was validated by referee Bráulio Machado, who ended the game immediately. However, at the end of the match, the score was recorded as a 0-0 draw.

The referee's decision to disallow Barra's goal came after the end of the match. There is no record of the disallowed goal in the match report, and the referee did not justify or mention the goal scored. With the goalless draw, Barra, who would have qualified for the next phase of the Catarinense, is out of the competition and ends the fight for a spot in the Série D of the 2026 Brazilian Championship.''

Bolivia, Torneo de Verano, Deportivo Always Ready vs Deportivo de Blooming, the Semi-Final has ended,

Both teams ruined the enjoyment of watching the match with four red cards shown at the very end.
Outside of the game breakdown - thankfully, the well-chosen Asian Handicap in favor of the La Paz-originated team was slightly underrated by the odds compilers, perhaps due to the 1st leg result.

By the way, Luis Suárez was substituted, he had a good match for Miami (MLS, Miami vs Charlotte at the moment), Jordi Alba's level today is so-so, but I'm disappointed that Lionel Messi is on the bench, let's see what happens in the last 20 minutes to go...

Addendum: Sergio Busquets was OK as well as Jordi Alba's improved performance later in the game. I'm under the impression that Javier Mascherano had limited options due to Ustari's red card, but I wonder if Lionel Messi would have shown up to help Luis Suárez today if Allende hadn't scored at all...

By the way, what's your opinion on AH's main line right now regarding the River Plate vs. Atlético Tucumán?

apoel81 wrote: ↑

Wed Mar 05, 2025 10:08 am

arb12 wrote: ↑

Tue Mar 04, 2025 5:23 pm

The most elegant approach to scoring goals in South American Soccer in action:


youtube.com/watch?v=tSSXVxyKiic

South American is crazy in all ways

Few days ago, in Brazil Campeonato Catarinense, guest scored a winning goal in last kick of the game, 95th minute. Referee counted goal and instant blow final whistle. After game finished he changed his mind and goal canceled

Check the video at 2.20:30

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ceg3dWAeefs&t=8788s

Bookies paid 0-1 but they recalculate it few days after. Of course, i was on over 0.5

https://soesporte.com.br/arbitro-anula- ... -catarina/

''The last round of the Campeonato Catarinense, which took place on Saturday (22), was marked by a refereeing controversy in the duel between Caravaggio and Barra, at Estádio da Montanha. The match was tied until injury time, when Natan scored the goal that would qualify Barra for the quarterfinals of the championship. The goal was validated by referee Bráulio Machado, who ended the game immediately. However, at the end of the match, the score was recorded as a 0-0 draw.

The referee's decision to disallow Barra's goal came after the end of the match. There is no record of the disallowed goal in the match report, and the referee did not justify or mention the goal scored. With the goalless draw, Barra, who would have qualified for the next phase of the Catarinense, is out of the competition and ends the fight for a spot in the Série D of the 2026 Brazilian Championship.''

@Apoel81,

I hope you placed your positions in a reputed agency and not in a one-day-bookie. In the days since this match, have you received any help from the regulatory body or dispute mediator? I mean that is a very strong argument that might help you:

apoel81 wrote: ↑

Wed Mar 05, 2025 10:08 am

...
The referee's decision to disallow Barra's goal came after the end of the match. There is no record of the disallowed goal in the match report, and the referee did not justify or mention the goal scored.
...

There have been other strange and scary settlement-related incidents recently.
For example here:
1xbet-scam-be-aware-t10378/

The very respected source (UEFA) and de facto body organizing the tournament should be an official source to settle the results according to the legislation of that entity. However, as seen on the abovementioned thread, they published on different places on their official webpage mutually exclusive information:

https://www.uefa.com/uefaeuropaleague/m ... tatistics/

and thanks to the Forum User Greenunicorn69 the "protocol / match report" of that game became visible:
https://www.uefa.com/newsfiles/uefacup/ ... 499_FR.pdf

so the big question here is exactly how the legit players would avoid the wrong betting settlement in the future, when the legit body is publishing different things and the bookies might choose settlement in their favor.

My suggestion to the Admin of that Forum:
Is it possible to create a VIP Thread, containing up-to-date links, where the official "protocols/match reports" after every played game for every federation (such as UEFA, FIFA, CONMEBOL, AFA, CBD and so on) would be available for all the Forum Users? That way the legit players, who placed legit positions (and NO shady markets/positions), would defend their rights in a conversation with the regulatory authorities that licensed the bookies and the bookies' intermediaries / dispute mediators.

South American is crazy in all ways

Few days ago, in Brazil Campeonato Catarinense, guest scored a winning goal in last kick of the game, 95th minute. Referee counted goal and instant blow final whistle. After game finished he changed his mind and goal canceled

Check the video at 2.20:30

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ceg3dWAeefs&t=8788s

Bookies paid 0-1 but they recalculate it few days after. Of course, i was on over 0.5

Referee protected his position of course!. Now seriously, I've been following Brazilian soccer for more than 2 years mostly Serie B and A, and despite the use of VAR in both leagues I've seen plenty of questionable calls from referees.

Sometimes they disallow goals without any logical reason, or concede imaginary penalties. Also happens the other way around: they're quite liberal with hand balls in the "danger zone", unless a player starts playing volleyball they won't give a penalty.

This case it's very strange, first he conceded the goal but then disallowed it ¿because a foul to the goalkeeper?. I don't see any foul there.

kamerico wrote: ↑

Tue Mar 18, 2025 7:33 pm

...

Referee protected his position of course!. Now seriously, I've been following Brazilian soccer for more than 2 years mostly Serie B and A, and despite the use of VAR in both leagues I've seen plenty of questionable calls from referees.

Sometimes they disallow goals without any logical reason, or concede imaginary penalties. Also happens the other way around: they're quite liberal with hand balls in the "danger zone", unless a player starts playing volleyball they won't give a penalty.

This case it's very strange, first he conceded the goal but then disallowed it ¿because a foul to the goalkeeper?. I don't see any foul there.

Thank you for joining the thread on this occasion.
It is not good for all market participants, nor for the originators of the market and the overall trust, when the settlement of a sole event played by 22 people depends on the subjective unfounded decisions of one person.
Please keep us updated if you learn anything new about this strange case / if you discover a trustworthy source, that publishes official "protocols/match reports".
Thanks.

It's confirmed by the AFA: the psychological weapon Lionel Messi, as well as Gonzalo Montiel, Paulo Dybala, and Alejandro Garnacho, are NOT available these days for the World Cup qualifiers. No Giovani Lo Celso in the squad, too?!?

A plethora of low-importance Parameters and several medium-importance ones need to be emergently re-evaluated before selecting the final tune-ups of the working Model with regard to the next two Argentine games in a few days: Uruguay vs Argentina at Centenario, as well as Argentina vs. Brasil at the mythological Mâs Monumental.
Although the modeling task (aiming to grab some value through compiling own real odds vs the odds compilers' offers) is not particularly difficult at a very first glance, given the well-known patterns of play of the Argentines in the absence of key players in recent years, I believe that the most critical pitfall in terms of modeling here would be the dispersion of the logical ∑ of the correct preliminary assessments of the following circumstances:

(1) The lack of sufficient time to build the most reliable probabilistic Model with the most likely starting lineups of La Albiceleste vs La Celeste and a few days later vs Seleção.

Five players from Atlético de Madrid which are apparently scaled into Diego Simeone's style, are available for Scaloni here; the correct forecast of which of them will enter and when and their overall impact on the team are amongst the keys to choosing the right Model's tune-ups in my opinion.

Watching, decomposing and analyzing many and many Argentine matches over the years, I get the impression that Lionel Scaloni generally does not like experimenting with the lineup and simply seeks to squeeze the last possible sparkle from the golden Jewels of the old glory team that won the World Cup & twice Copa América, safely preserving their first-class level, somehow trying to handle their extreme physical fatigue (currently at the top of the 2026 World Cup qualifiers after won the 2024 Copa América), which led to bright short-term risks on the pitch (poorly managed ones in my view) in a certain number of matches in the 2026 World Cup qualifiers.
But the lack of moves a few years ago to the intensive introduction of the supposedly stable core of new players in order to be fully prepared to replace the golden generation one day, combined with the final exploitation of the golden arrows, de facto postponed the problem in time, thus empirically known risks when renewing every team are likely to emerge in the longer term, but I can’t yet assess the expected magnitude and duration of the decline when it happens.
I'm not only referring to the absence of Claudio Echeverri. But a perfect performance vs Brasil Youth in Caracas last month for the Sudamericano Sub-20 is clearly not enough to be in the first team...


(2) The updated probabilities that have been built upon the pre-assessment of the Argentine defensive resilience under high opponents' pressure, built mainly upon the Emiliano Martínez & Nicolás Otamendi axis (here I don't underestimate Molina, Romero & Tagliafico at all!), especially vs the highly likely "purely pushing" attacks in the 2000's-style, and other old-school tactical schemes, practiced by Marcelo Bielsa's Uruguay.
Although my observations pointed out that Bielsa's approach often creates exceptional circumstances for heavy attacks conducted "on the floor", I'm pretty sure he will take into consideration the moments when the Argentine defensive axis is vulnerable "in the air" - I mean conceding the Rondón goal in Maturín, October 2024 vs Venezuela as well as both the goals (Sanabria & Alderete) conceded in Asunción in November vs Paraguay. Not to mention one of the easiest goals that La Albiceleste conceded ever vs Colombia (in Barranquilla in September), after the brilliant air combination from James Rodríguez to Mosquera.
If remember Argentina lost in Buenos Aires vs Bielsa's Uruguay 0:2 in 2023, as well as Paraguay, Colombia & Venezuela are led by Argentines and they guessed the Argentine defense axis in 2024, coincidence or not...

Vs Brasil?
I'm very sorry Ñeymar Júnior was ruled out of Brasil vs Colombia and vs La Albiceleste. After a long pause, he came back for serious Soccer with OK status (applied to his age), for example, the direct corner kick goal for Santos recently:

youtube.com/watch?v=mKCWgwYDF80

and additionally, I think Scaloni would send one or two guards close to him, which would hypothetically lead to poorly guarded areas against some alternative Seleção attacks, and that has a huge importance in modeling the right probability interval of some Asian Handicap lines etc.

I'm also trying to guess whether the current Coach has been able to better adapt Brasil behavior when the opponent suddenly changes some tactical approaches. For example, in November 2024 in Maturín, Venezuela initially started somewhat similarly against Brasil as they played against Argentina in October. However, from the very beginning of the 2ndHalf, Venezuela changed many things tactically and Seleção was too inert to accommodate, thus La Vinotinto leveled the score and survived at the end, so:
- What would be the likelihood of low-quality tactical adaptation happening now if the past negotiations with Carlo Ancelotti had been successfully concluded? Carletto currently coaches several Brasilians at Real Madrid, all of them perfectly incorporated into the team.
- Due to some elements of their play vs Brasil in the second half, the Venezuela team looked to me like a lurking Minotaur, i.e contemporary version of the Italy team under Coach Dino Zoff and the Paraguay team under Coach Cesare Maldini, in case you remember those crazy days

(3) And so on;

I would love to read any different Modelers' Points of View here.

Well, I'm still analyzing my fresh impressions from the Copa Argentina clash Atlético San Martín vs Gimnasia y Esgrima de Jujuy, which has ended a few hours ago, but now I want to write about bad possible decisions regarding the optimization task.

According to the pre-match analysis based on my impressions and custom Stats about Apertura (Liga Profesional 10Wks + Primera Nacional 7Wks), the leading probabilities were calculated on various markets such as BTTS (NO); the Matrix, built on the shortened combination of {AH(-0.25)SMSJ & AH(0.0)SMSJ & AH(+0.25)GyE} backed the GyE team in the end; an additional Matrix, built on U(1.75) as a probable starting point for modeling plus some specific additional conditions, when I solved that task under the predefined condition according my observations GoalsScored∈[0,1,2). And so on, and so forth.

Now the interesting part - the most likely outcomes in different markets for SMSJ vs GyE were generally caught by the Model, almost all sub-events happened as forecasted, but the Delta of the pre-match odds (i.e. the offered odds minus the own calculated minimum odds) was negative, so overall Kelly would recommend skipping those markets, aiming for very long-term results.

Despite the very good result of today's tune-ups, I made big errors - on the one hand, I didn't optimize at all the Criterion when exactly the transition from long-term (based on classic Kelly, but very reasonable custom modifications applied afterward) to medium-term targets is permissible. Here I have some ideas for building some operational Methods in a very different Project for optimizing the transition assessment, triggering YES/NO in the end, taking into account not only the re-assessment of risk, the modulus of Delta level and many other factors, but also incorporating my own ELO rating of the teams, my impressions of their current style of Soccer, etc., etc, etc.
Despite the negative Delta and increased risk factor, I backed Gimnasia y Esgrima de Jujuy (+0.25), moving it towards the medium-term NON-optimised curve. There were some rationales, for example, I saw great "value-prime" here and therefore took a huge risk. Furthermore, the four goals scored by Atletico San Martin in Apertura LP 10Wks so far were in conditions that I think were not highly likely to happen today.

On the other hand, even though I entered GS∈[0,1,2) based on matches in both the aforementioned Aperturas I've looked at so far, and NOT GS∈(0,1,2), I simply underestimated the pre-match calculation of probabilities for qualifying to the next round via penalty shoot-outs. And finally, the last error, discovered in the post-match analysis was the penalty shoot-out order of Y/N I tried to forecast in-live when the penalties began, I mean those South American teams qualifying after ∑ six shots specifically in order YNYNYN are rare.
By the way, the longest streak in my Stats that season is in Europe - ∑ 34 were the penalty shoot-outs in the clash Ajax vs Panathinaikos for the UEFA Europa League held last August, OMG!

I'd love to read your hints/ideas for optimization if any Modelers / Mathematicians / Passionate Sporting Enthusiasts are reading here. I don't mean just Soccer, of course. There are other Sports where monstrous financial turnovers are possible within a timeframe of 4h, 8h, or 5 days.