Did you know that the average football game has between 2,000 and 3,000 ‘moments’ in it?
These are the events that are logged by data firm Opta, which include passes, shots, tackles, throw ins, saves and more besides.
Typically, only around 0.001% of these are goals, which makes you realise just how low scoring football is as a sport… and why the humble goal should be cherished.
It’s the sort of logic that makes you wonder why we bet on goals-based markets, but plenty of punters each week land an acca or two based upon both teams to score, over/under 2.5 goals and the like.
And Paddy Power were left counting the cost of that at the weekend, as one of their customers took them for an extraordinary 17,500/1, 19-fold accumulator… turning £25 into more than £440,000 into the bargain!
Super Saturday
Our punter eyed up the weekend’s fixtures in the Premier League, EFL, German Bundesliga and French Ligue 1 and came to the conclusion that plenty of goals were going to be scored.
And the sweet irony of it all is that the coupon nearly came a-cropper in its very first game…
The Paddy Power customer anticipated goals in the contest between Tottenham and Manchester United on Saturday lunchtime. That was an Over 2.5 Goals selection, but with the game poised at 1-0 with just six minutes of normal time to play, expectation had turned to unadulterated hoping for the best.
Spurs netted an 84th minute equaliser through Mathys Tel, but it wasn’t until injury time that Richarlison popped up with the third goal of the game. There was even time for Matthijs de Ligt to notch a late, late equaliser for United – not that our punter cared, given that their selection had already landed.
A series of 14:30 kick-offs in the German Bundesliga brought three more winning picks, with Bayern Munich coming from behind to draw 2-2 at Union Berlin while Bayer Leverkusen, who had been backed as part of an Over 3.5 Goals selection, were 4-0 up inside half an hour of their 6-0 triumph over Heidenheim.
Back in England, our punter had tucked into a host of EPL and EFL games, with 12 of their selections coming within the 3pm kick offs.
These included Over 1.5, 2.5 and 3.5 Goal picks, with contests hosted by Everton, Hull, Blackburn and Millwall all breaching their requisite goal lines.
It positively rained goals in the EFL on Saturday, with ten of the eleven games played in League One witnessing three or more goals – the Paddy Power customer was on board for slobberknockers at Blackpool, Bolton, Rotherham and Wycombe, as well as Peterborough’s 5-0 thrashing of AFC Wimbledon.
There were plenty of goals flowing in League Two too, with Crawley’s 2-1 win over Fleetwood, the 2-2 thriller between Barnet and MK Dons and Chesterfield’s epic 3-3 draw with Accrington all satisfying the Over 2.5 Goals criteria.
And so, come 5pm on Saturday, our punter was 15 legs into their 19-fold acca… with plenty more twists and turns to come.
Back of the Neto
Marseille and Brest kicked off at 16:00, with another Over 2.5 Goal selection aided by early strikes from Angel Gomes and Mason Greenwood.
It would take until the 81st minute for Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang to notch the third, at which point the game between Borussia M’gladbach and FC Koln was just getting underway.
Over 2.5 Goals? This pick breezed home, with Monchengladbach 2-0 up after 61 minutes before adding a third just three minutes later.
All of which left two 20:00 kick offs left to run. Chelsea were hosting managerless Wolves at Stamford Bridge, and with the game goalless at half time, our punter might just have been thinking that their remarkable run of fortune was about to come to an end.
Over in Monaco, the hosts were 1-3 down against Lens at half time, so that selection was in. All eyes were now on Stamford Bridge…
Chelsea finally broke the deadlock in the 51st minute through Malo Gusto’s header, before Joao Pedro fired home a second 14 minutes later.
Would the Blues take their foot off the gas… and thus rob our punter of the third goal they needed? Fortunately not, as Pedro Neto turned home Alejandro Garnacho’s cross to make it 3-0 to Chelsea.
And so one of the most incredible Saturdays imaginable came to an end for the Paddy Power customer, who in the space of around nine hours had turned a hopeful £25 punt into a life-changing £440,000 win.