Vasco da Gama VS Nautico

Vasco welcome Nautico for this Brazilian Serie B round 30 battle at Estádio Vasco da Gama in Rio de Janeiro. This is the second-highest level of this amazing football-crazy country’s football and is of decent level by global standards. It is, similarly to many other South American leagues, a low-scoring one. We must remember this espacially in handicap betting. The situation is clear here – the hosts are the better team in all areas of the game. The biggest difference is defense – the hosts have allowed 24 goals. Nautico, on the other hand have conceded 40 goals – the biggest number in this league. However, Vasco have scored just 31 goals – a small number for a team that currently occupy the 4th place with 45 points to their account. Nautico have netted the ball 24 times. Vasco have won just one of their latest eight matches by more than one goal’s difference. This happened on the 13th of August 3-1 at home over Tombense in match that was pretty balances despite Vasco being priced around 1.50 to win on the betting market. Overall Vasco have been lucky this season taking five more points than they would have deserved in terms of expected points. This is probably one of the reasons behind the over-valuation here.

The hosts are of course solid favorites here, but I would estimate their chance of winning at 57%. I expect Nautico to play very defensive football and they often do not increase the risk-level even when they are trailing by one goal’s difference. Vasco, on the other hand, often settle for protecting a one-goal-lead – even at home. Indeed, my fans and I have a very good chance of winning with the +1.5 goals’ handicap option on Nautico. Vasco are in bad form having lost four of their most recent five games and might lose their top-4 position as Londrina and Sport Recife are very close in the standings. Somehow the bookies still respect Vasco a lot and fail to see their decline. In their most recent match, they lost to Gremio 1-2 away from home but played quite okay. Before this they were weak on the road against Brusque recording just two shots on goal. They, once again, lacked offensive creativity and many of their players looked very frustrated on the pitch. Nautico are the rock-bottom team at the moment but surely have potential to climb up the standings during the remainder of the season. The difference to Novorizontio in 13th place is just six points. The visitors have improved a lot as a whole – and especially defensively - in recent weeks and have now taken two morale-boosting wins, fine wins in a row without allowing a single goal!