SUNDAY PREVIEW: The Ultra previews Sunday’s matches between MAINZ v UNION BERLIN, BAYERN MUNICH v WOLFSBURG and ALMERIA v REAL MADRID all with a recommended BETDAQ bet.
MAINZ V UNION BERLIN
2.30pm Another cracking Sunday around Europe on BETDAQ Betting Exchange! The headline in Europe on Sunday is Real Madrid return to action in La Liga after winning another Super Cup midweek against Eintracht Frankfurt, but we also have two interesting fixtures from the Bundesliga before we move to La Liga later. We start the day with Mainz hosting Union Berlin. Both these sides started their campaign with a win last weekend, and we have a fascinating market here. Mainz are clear favourites, probably mainly because of their strong home form last season. They finished the season in 8th position, 11 points behind Union Berlin who finished in 5th – however if we look at the home form table we see Mainz shoot up to the top four only behind Bayern Munich, Dortmund and RB Leipzig. It’s worth noting that they actually had the same amount of points at home as Union Berlin who had an excellent season, and they were reasonably solid away from home too. Looking at the home and away tables from last season is actually remarkable – Mainz top four at home but they finished second last away from home – talk about a difference!
With Mainz having home advantage I expect a very close game here. I would be very confident on a Union Berlin win if you changed home advantage but here we are. That being said, I still feel the 2.3 on Mainz is way too short. Union Berlin have shown themselves to be a top side over the last while and I fully expect them to make the game closer than the odds suggest. It was great to land a very confident bet on Union Berlin to win the Berlin Derby last weekend, and we can land another bet on them here – this time laying Mainz. That was a reasonably tough start to the season in a big local Derby, but obviously there was a gulf in class between the sides from Berlin these days. I wouldn’t be surprised to see a draw here to be honest, but laying Mainz we have the draw as well as the Union win on our sides and that’s a very nice position to have in my opinion.
The Ultra Says:
Three points lay (liability) Mainz to beat Union Berlin at 2.3 with BETDAQ BETTING EXCHANGE.
You can view all markets here -> https://betdaq.biz/MaiUni
BAYERN MUNICH V WOLFSBURG
4.30pm We stay in the Bundesliga next as the German Champions Bayern Munich host Wolfsburg. The market is exceptionally confident on an easy Bayern win here with the home side trading as short as 1.16 at the time of writing. Who can blame the market having Bayern this short either – they were very impressive on the opening weekend. It was a great to land a Max Bet on them, but even I was surprised with home easily they won. With Haaland gone from Dortmund, it looks like the Bundesliga could be over very early this season. I don’t think the winner is even in question anymore to be honest – it’s a case of how far do Bayern win. It’s a similar story in this game too, it’s not a question of do Bayern win or not, it’s a question of how many goals can they score. With Bayern trading so short in the match odds market, we’re going to have to look around the side markets for some value here. Wolfsburg were very poor last season, and they started off with an underwhelming 2-2 draw against Werder Bremen who came back into the Bundesliga this season. They had home advantage too, and if they can’t beat sides on Werder with home advantage then it’s going to be another long season.
The fall off from Wolfsburg was very sharp. It was almost hard to believe looking at them last season that they managed to finish in the top four in 2020/21. They dropped all the way down to 12th last season – they conceded more goals than they scored, but their xG figures were in line together – they created an xG of 1.5 goals per game and conceded the same. They clearly have issues going forward, but Bayern like to play such an open game I don’t really like the Bayern clean sheet option here. Like last weekend, if they go 3-0 or 4-0 up they tend to just open the game up and concede a sloppy goal. I much prefer Bayern to cover the 2.5 goal handicap at 1.97 – they started the season with a bang last weekend and Wolfsburg are there for the taking too. Everything lines up for another big Bayern win.
The Ultra Says:
Three points win Bayern Munich -2.5 goals to beat Wolfsburg at 1.97 with BETDAQ BETTING EXCHANGE.
You can view all markets here -> https://betdaq.biz/BayWol
ALMERIA V REAL MADRID
9pm Next we move to La Liga to finish the evening as Almeria host the Champions Real Madrid. Almeria face a baptism of fire here after topping the Segunda last season. They finished level on points with Real Valladolid and that was a nice reward after missing out in the playoffs for two season. It actually wasn’t so long ago that Almeria were mid-table in the Segunda so it’s a massive achievement that they are here; and fair enough they might get relegated this season but they might as well enjoy it! It’s very hard to see anything bar a Real Madrid win here, and I was surprised to see them trading as big as 1.46 when I clicked into the market. You could easily make the case that they should be ten ticks shorter here, and I’m very happy to take the 1.46 on offer. There’s definitely a gulf in class between the sides here, and Real Madrid had a nice warm-up midweek when winning the Super Cup against Eintracht Frankfurt. With Almeria so limited going forward, I would assume their tactics this season will be to sit back and hope to grind out enough results to stay up.
Those tactics might work against the mid-table sides, but they are very unlikely to work against an excellent side like Real Madrid. Obviously the Champions benefitted from very slow starts from Barcelona and Altetico Madrid last season, but you couldn’t knock Real – they did what had to be done. They finished the season with an average xG of 2.2 per game which is very impressive and they conceded an average xG of 1.3 – they overperformed at the back, meaning they could concede more goals this season – they conceded less than a goal per game last season, but they did concede more chances. With Almeria expected to be very negative with their tactics, that does make the goal markets very interesting. I would expect Real to have to grind this one out and Almeria won’t come out of their shell much. I can’t see a better value bet here than the Real win at 1.46 though – as I said above I expected them to be under 1.4 here so I’m very happy to take the 1.46.
The Ultra Says:
Three points win Real Madrid to beat Almeria at 1.46 with BETDAQ BETTING EXCHANGE.
You can view all markets here -> https://betdaq.biz/AlmRea
