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Free Soccer Picks for Saturday 1/20/2024 from Europe Leagues

by Griffin Murphy - 1/19/2024

Real Betis Soccer

As the NFL season is racing toward its penultimate game with Super Bowl 58, "across the pond" other football (what Americans call soccer) leagues are heating up as well. With the spread of sports wagering, these once little-known leagues of profit are now available to the entire world. At Doc’s Sports, we're all about finding value anywhere we can, and soccer (specifically European leagues) offers amazing opportunities. I'm excited to announce starting tomorrow, January 20, I will be offering soccer selections. I'll be offering daily plays, as well as weekly and monthly packages. Using Doc's patented unit-based betting system, as well as my "intelligently aggresive" strategy, I'm confident the remainder of the soccer campaign will be a very lucrative one. We're kicking off the season with a 5-Unit play in the Bundesliga match between RB Leipzig and Leverkusen tomorrow.

Get sports picks for every league and nearly every matchup on Doc’s free picks page.

There are a few things that make European soccer leagues so captivating and filled with excitement. Each country has its domestic leagues, with separate divisions having different levels of talent that are interconnected. England's football association features a pyramid of 10 different leagues. The Premier League is the pinnacle of that pyramid, and as such, garners the lion's share of attention. That league and the next three divisions, Championship, League One, and League Two, make up the English Football League (EFL). The leagues beneath the EFL are known as the National Leagues, and there are six divisions of those. There are 20 teams in the Premier League and 24 in each of the other tiers. Each league crowns its champion, which is based on the regular season play. There are also various in-season tournaments that open to different teams based on which division they reside in. England's three in-season tournaments are the EFL Cup and the world-famous FA Cup, which is open to all eligible clubs down to the ninth level of the English football league system. In 2011-12, a record 763 teams were entered into the competition.

Each country is also connected through the United European Football Association (UEFA). UEFA organizes four different club competitions, as well as the national ones. Each club competition has qualifying parameters that are met through the results of the domestic leagues. These "Contiental Leagues" are prestigious in their own right.

While all of the different leagues and competitions can be confusing, facing new and different teams adds a dash of spice to an otherwise bland and repetitive schedule. However, European football gets even better with what I consider the greatest concept in sports leagues: promotion and relegation. The top two teams from each league are promoted to the next higher league and the bottom two teams are relegated (bumped down) to the next lower tier. In the NBA and NFL, there are sometimes accusations of tanking to secure a higher draft pick. Because of the increased financial compensation for higher leagues, teams fight for their proverbial lives to stave off relegation. Just imagine if the Carolina Panthers would be knocked down to the UFL in spring because they finished in last place.

These are just a few of the interesting differences between European football and American sports leagues. What I find the most appealing is the number of different leagues and the amount of games they play. With a league schedule that is nestled in between the NFL 17-game campaign and the NHL/NBA slate of 82 games, the European football schedule feels right.

What we'll do each week is break down some of the interesting matchups across the various leagues for the weekend. I specialize in the Italian Serie A and the German Bundesliga but provide picks across the entire continent of soccer.

Spanish La Liga

Real Betis vs. Barcelona Sunday, Jan. 21st 12:30 pm ESPN Deportes

Barcelona, one of the more popular teams from the Spanish La Liga, finds itself in unfamiliar territory, in 4th-place in the league at the halfway mark. They are traveling to Estado Benito Villamarin to take on a surprisingly stout Real Betis side. Betis has made their home something of a fortress, surrendering a league-best four goals (tied with Real Madrid) at home while compiling a record of six wins and four draws against no losses.

While Barcelona is undefeated against Real Betis over their last five matches (4-0-1), including a 5-0 drubbing back in September, this is not the same Barca club. There have been rumblings in the locker room that manager Xavi Hernandez is having difficulty getting some of the senior players to execute his tactics. Barcelona lost to hated rival Real Madrid last Sunday in the Spanish Super Cup. And even though they advanced to the round of 8 in the Copa del Rey on Thursday, they had to come from a half-time 1-0 hole against a third-tier Primera Federacion team that was founded just 10 years ago. That's the kind of team the Messi and Suarez would have hung a dozen goals on. In addition, Barcelona's first-team goalie, Marc-Andre ter Stegen, is out until mid-March with a back injury. While I'm not calling for the outright upset here, I am taking Real Betis +0.5 goals at even money, as I think Betis stays competitive the whole match. Getting half a goal at +100 is just the cherry on the sundae.

PICK: Real Betis +0.5 goals +100

English Premier League

Brentford vs. Nottingham Forest Saturday, Jan. 20th, 12:30 pm ESPN+

We go to the EPL for our second game, where we find Nottingham Forest and Brentford swirling around the relegation bubble. Forest comes into the match with 20 points, one better than Brentford's 19. Ivan Toney, Brentford's "bad-boy" forward, has finally been reinstated for numerous breaches of player conduct regarding player betting rules, of all things. He's been training and playing some non-competitive matches with the U23 team and should be very close to being match-fit. It couldn't come at a better time, as Brentford is just three points from the dreaded relegation zone.

We're looking at the various totals for this match and like the over 2.5 Goals line at -125. Brentford's home defense is a bit on the porous side, tied for 3rd-most goals allowed at home (18 in ten home contests). As can be expected, eight out of the last 10 home matches for Brentford have been over 2.5 goals. Nottingham Forest isn't much better in the defense department, having conceded two or more goals in six of their last ten away matches. Offensively, however, the Forest have been up to the task, netting two or more goals in nine of their last 20 matches. With the welcome return of Brentford's Toney, we expect a slew of scoring chances that will result in an easy cash of over 2.5 goals.

PICK: Brentford-Nottingham Forest OVER 2.5 goals -125

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