Our resident tipster Jones Knows analyses the outright betting for the Club World Cup and is backing Manchester City to deliver the goods at 5/1.
Finding the winner of a completely new competition is a challenge. Usually there are trends, pockets of evidence and historical patterns that can help in potentially finding an edge in assessing the market.
For those tackling the outright for this tournament, trusting your gut and visualising how the tournament is going to pan out is really the only logical way of trying to assess whether there are backable teams.
It’s a bit of an unknown though and while the money on offer is enormous, it’s difficult to assess the motivation of teams before a ball has been kicked so I can completely see why punters would want to dip their toe in, watch a match or two, before completely jumping in at the deep end.
European domination?
What we do know from history is that European sides tend to dominate in the old format as 16 of the last 17 winners have hailed from Europe with Corinthians in 2012 the only outlier. This European dominance is expected to continue over this longer format. A quick look at the ante post market shows that, with the first nine teams heading up the betting all hailing from Europe.
Fancy a team to win it from Europe? You can get 1/20 for your money. That’s an implied probability of 96 per cent. It’s the closest thing to a certainty you’ll find.
There were grumbles from various clubs a few months ago that perhaps this tournament will be treated as a bit of an early pre-season trip, with relaxed vibes the order of the day. However, the sniff of £775m on offer in the prize pot has focused minds now the tournament is here.
Game faces are on. Strong squads have been selected.
All signs lead to this being treated as a big deal by the European teams which is bad news for the clubs from the rest of the world.
PSG’s style too frenetic for US heat
European champions Paris Saint-Germain have arrived in Los Angeles ahead of the FIFA Club World Cup
I believe the two big factors that aren’t being showcased enough in the pricing of teams revolve around freshness and teams being able to play energy-saving football in the conditions.
This is a tournament set to be played in extreme temperatures in the US with 14 of the 16 host stadiums likely to top 28C across June and July when looking at historical weather data.
Teams are going to have to play smart football in terms of keeping possession. Make the opposition do the running.
And those teams that rely on playing intense football may just come a cropper in these conditions especially with the games coming thick and fast in the usual World Cup format.
That’s why it’s easy to look past Champions League winners PSG in the outright market at 9/2 with Sky Bet.
Those that snaffled all the 8/1 on offer just before their win over Inter Milan will have locked in a nice position but they are very short in the betting now. Luis Enrique’s team are blistering to watch, full of energy and dynamism – as shown by their PPDA metric of 8.3 in Ligue 1 – that is the number of opposition passes allowed outside of the pressing team’s own defensive third. It indicates a desire to press backed up by their hefty high turnover numbers per 90 which stands at 9.8 across all competitions last season.
The searing heat may just blunt what makes them so special. They are easily swerved.
Favourites Real Madrid look vulnerable
Keeping along the energy lines, the fact this tournament falls where it does in the calendar has to raise issues about players truly being at their full potential and fitness for the challenge ahead.
Global players’ union Fifpro and the top European Leagues released a statement in December criticising the scheduling of this tournament, saying the international football calendar is “oversaturated” and “risks player safety and well-being”.
There are of course just five weeks between the Club World Cup final and the first Premier League match of the 2025/2026 season, which is scheduled for August 16. This is all on the back of a European Championships last summer.
Some players have been on the go for over 12 months. For many players and teams it’s an unsustainable workload and from a betting point of view, there’s an edge to exploit here with taking a view that the teams coming into the tournament with the most minutes in their legs will be at a big disadvantage.
With this theory in mind, it completely perplexes this writer that Real Madrid are being priced up as the tournament favourites at 4/1 with Sky Bet. This is a price based on reputation and brand status rather than a team suited to winning the actual tournament.
Trent Alexander-Arnold shares more on his move to Real Madrid from Liverpool and reveals how long he’d been learning Spanish!
New boss Xabi Alonso has a tough job on his hands anyway to implement his way of working onto a team packed full of egos but he’s got an important tournament to navigate his way through with a legless squad who have been on the go across various competitions at a relentless rate. Since the start of May 2024, Real Madrid’s players have played 69,509 minutes of football – the most of any European team in this competition. That’s just under 6,000 minutes more than PSG, who have played 63,656 minutes.
Jude Bellingham for example has played 6,010 minutes since the start of May for club and country – that’s around 66 games in 13 months. When you compare his workload to a similar player in terms of make-up in Chelsea star Enzo Fernandez, who has only played 3,609 minutes during the same period, it starts to paint a picture of why perhaps Madrid’s key man might be underperforming in comparison to best output.
Federico Valverde (6,578), Kylian Mbappe (5,680) and Vinicius Jnr (4,657) are also coming into this tournament with a huge amount of minutes in their legs, further enhancing the argument that Madrid are on the verge of burnout.
Pep’s reboot starts here
This might just be a perfect storm for Manchester City, who have set their stall out to make a big splash at this tournament based on their early summer recruitment. New signings Tijjani Reijnders, Rayan Cherki and Rayan Ait Nouri are all on the plane heading for America as Pep Guardiola looks to rebuild this City team back to former glories.
I want to be with them at 5/1 with Sky Bet.
After completely unravelling halfway through the season, City finished the Premier League campaign strongly. They lost just three of their last 21 games with their defensive axis and expected goals against numbers stacking up very nicely. In their last 14 Premier League games, City conceded just nine goals and kept a whopping eight clean sheets.
In truth, it was tedious to watch with Guardiola insisting his team played with complete control, keeping the ball in their relentless style that strangles the life out of a team. That style is exactly what you want to do in extreme conditions. And there is no team better equipped than a Guardiola one for such a task, especially with their most important player likely to be fit in the centre of their midfield.
Yes, Rodri is back.
And how they have missed his influence. Since the start of the 23/24 season, City’s results when Rodri is missing have taken a huge hit. The win percentage drops from 75 per cent to 50 per cent, the points per game goes from 2.5 to 1.7. To put it simply, they score more goals and concede fewer when the monstrous Spanish matador is on the pitch.
After eight months out with a serious knee injury, he is reportedly showing all the signs required in training for him to be unleashed and play lots of minutes at this tournament.
European football experts Andy Brassell and Kevin Hatchard discuss Rayan Cherki’s move from Lyon to the Etihad after the forward’s five-year deal was completed before Tuesday’s first summer transfer deadline
A group consisting of Juventus, Wydad AC from Morocco and Al Ain from UAE should be a doddle before the toughest fixture they could face in their section on route to the semi-final would be Inter Milan – a team under a new manager and completely exhausted following a hectic end to their season.
The path to the last four looks clear. From there, they have the manager, the players, the winning mentality and desire to go all the way. Take the 5/1.
This news was originally published on this post .
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