Soccer Best Bets From All Over Europe: January 7 & 8

There's no Premier League action this weekend, but we have soccer best bets from all over the world for you to follow. Let chaos reign! This weekend we finally return to the full clusterfuck experience of club soccer, with hundreds of games to choose from and a variety of leagues on display. Given this is traditionally an EPL article with a bonus pick thrown in for fun, I wasn't sure whether the Dimers overlords would want something from me, but rather than asking I pounded on ahead and wrote an article because I generally live by the idea that it's better to ask forgiveness than permission.

So what is the plan here? Well, there really isn't one. But rather than focusing my efforts on just the EPL to appease the common gambler, I dug through the whole landscape of Europe to find a few bets that I liked, including one from the FA Cup to ensure we could call this an “English” article (technically correct, the best kind of correct). With that, I present to you three bets to make some money in soccer this weekend as the pickings get slimmer elsewhere with football fading out. You people need me more than ever, and I am glad to lead you into battle as your Czar.

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Soccer Best Bets From All Over Europe: January 7 & 8 

Coventry vs. Wrexham: Best Bet

Kickoff: Saturday, January 7 - 12:30PM ET

This game is fun for me on a number of levels. It involves British teams that have almost no relevance, it has some great value, and it allows me to talk about Wrexham. For those of you not familiar, Wrexham is the club owned by Ryan Reynolds and Rob McElhenney that’s somewhere between an investment, a toy, and a marketing tool. If you have a chance you should go watch the TV show they’ve made about the club (it’s both whimsical and interesting, which are great attributes), but the side is fairly solid since they’ve also invested a fair amount of money into the team.

That said, this is where the rubber hits the road. Coventry are no great side, but they are three whole tiers ahead of Wrexham and I’m willing to bet they aren't interested in losing to this club and dealing with the media attention that would surround it. On top of that, they’re simply a far better team playing on their home pitch, and they should have no trouble handling the match. Wrexham have invested in players up front, meaning they have a higher likelihood of trying to push and score than you would normally see from a lower tier team, and I expect Coventry finds ways to expose them. At just -122, the team total Over 1.5 is a fantastic price.

Bet: Coventry TT Over 1.5 (-122, 1.75 units)

Cercle Brugge vs. Westerlo: Best Bet

Kickoff: Saturday, January 7 - 12:15PM ET

You thought the last match was weird, let’s one up it with some mid-tier Jupiler League. In all honesty, Belgian soccer is not all that bad and tends to be fairly high scoring, which makes for a fun league to watch. The talent is also just barely good enough to make it palatable, which is why ESPN even bothered to grab the TV rights. So, even if you scoffed at first, just bear with me and have some fun.

This match has value in my eyes because it involves one of my favorite “games” to play in soccer gambling right now: bet whoever the f**k is facing Westerlo to score goals. The newly promoted side shockingly sit seventh right now, but they’ve conceded 33 goals in 18 matches while scoring 37, and they get into spitting contests with basically everyone they play. This week should be no different against a Cercle side that are fairly aggressive themselves, and I think the home side are strong enough to find multiple tallies. At even odds, the price is also more than high enough to work with. Westerlo may steal one or two themselves, but I have confidence that Cercle push at home and take a couple of chances in a game they need to win if they want any hope at European soccer. We fade Westerlo once again.

Bet: Cercle TT Over 1.5 (+100, 1.5 units)

NEC Nijmegen vs. Ajax: Best Bet

Kickoff: Sunday, January 8 - 8:30AM ET

Netherlands is back, and for the most part that means one thing; find ways to bet on Ajax. The Dutch giants aren't quite the side they were last season after losing a couple of key pieces and their manager, but this team still outclasses everyone not named PSG, Feyenoord and AZ, none of which are written in this title.

I considered a few different ways to attack this one, but ultimately I went with a high risk, high reward option. Ajax should be well rested right now, and the pre-World Cup schedule was brutal on them with European fixtures every week. With a month and a half for most of their players to recover, they should come out firing and I see first half goals in their future. At +250 for 1H TT Over 1.5, it’s a pretty heavy risk, which isn't my normal approach, but this team is more than capable of slaughtering NEC like sheep (not sure why I chose sheep, but it felt right. Sorry sheep). Ajax scored five 1H goals against them in one of their two matches last year, I’ll take a chance on just two here.

Bet: Ajax 1H TT Over 1.5 (+250, 1 unit)