Saturday 22 September 2012

All good things come to an end

I made £60(ish) backing Over 1.5 goals at 1.65 in the Juventus match tonight about 30 minutes in to the game (could have backed it at 3s before they scored their first goal), but a couple of things struck me while watching this match on ESPN.

This is now 43 matches unbeaten for Juventus stretching back to May 2011 which, by anyone's standards, is quite incredible. They went through the whole of last season without defeat and have seemingly carried on where they left off last season.

But watching this game, before they scored in the 63rd minute against an unimpressive Chievo side, it was possible to feel the tension building-up. The pressure and burden of continuing this amazing run was palpable and, for my money, it's now like the sword of Damocles hanging over these players. Of course after the first goal, they relaxed, quickly got a second and then strolled around the football field without a care in the world.

The thing though is this record is now a huge, fat, swollen boil and its just quivering like a jelly, ready to be lanced. From what I saw, the Juventus players will be pleased when it is finally lanced.

And so we move on to Juventus' next match on Tuesday, away to arch-rivals Fiorentina. The home side have a decent record at their own ground, and their revamped side today in preparation for Tuesday's match shows us the import they are attaching to this forthcoming fixture.

Having said that, Juventus don't appear to have found this ground particularly difficult in the past, and they also rested some players this evening with one eye on Tuesday's match - but as Gundulf might say, I've just got a hunch that this astounding record of Juventus is almost at its end. I'm not saying that Juventus will definitely lose on Tuesday, but a midweek away match against a rival side with a strong home record looks like a reasonable candidate to me. It's just the kind of match where these kind of records tend to fall.

Fiorentina can be be backed at 3.85 at the moment, or you could lay Juventus on Betfair at 2.1(ish).

I'm not in any way suggesting you follow me in on this, but I'm having a little fun straight bet of £100 on Fiorentina to end this run. If I lose, well it will be no great loss, but if I win then I will feel rather smug at having picked out the end to this unbelievable run. It will be interesting either way to see what happens.


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