Columbia, Colombia, Christmas and College

One comment while I was away, from The Soccer Doctor who added to the observations about backing Home teams in England in December with this observation:

As we are talking about the month of December, might I point you in the direction of the top three league in France and Columbia 1 in respect of draws for the month of December?

Backing blindly, this has been profitable in all but one of the last 9 seasons

I can't confirm these numbers, as Colombia (with an 'o') isn't one of the countries covered by Football Data, and the top divisions there are Categoría Primera A and Categoría Primera B rather than a "Columbia 1". 

It's also worth pointing out that December matches in Categoría Primera A are all play-off (knockout phase) games, and not league games, as the regular season ends in mid to late November. Perhaps Columbia (with a 'u') 1 is a different league in a different country? Otherwise, I have to admit to being a bit confused about this 'finding'.

Turning to France, and the December schedule there is always a light one, with leagues taking a break before Xmas. 

England is unique among the top European countries in that December is one of the busiest months, while for other leagues, it is one of the quietest and marks the start of a holiday mid-season break. 

It may well be true that the small sample size from France has been generally profitable, but I'd be very wary of reading too much into this, especially with a small sample size. If you look at enough leagues and data, you'll find what appear to be patterns all over the place, (it's called APOPHENIA - the tendency to apply meaning to otherwise random or unrelated patterns or data), so unless you can come up with a rational explanation for the results you are seeing, the chances are they are random. 

College Football is back, and followers of my NCAAF Small Road Dogs system will be pleased with the start to the season. Yesterday's system win for Texas A&M at UCLA looked to be in the bag early on. Texas A&M were getting five points and leading by 34 points on the field, but UCLA came back to win by one. Those five point spreads are dodgy, 21-24-2 over the most recent five seasons, but profitable over the past 16 seasons.   

As a reminder, this system has been profitable in 14 of the last 16 seasons, with very modest losses in those two losing seasons. Ten potential candidates for next weekend, but as explained previously, lines shift and this can all change.

The professional version of the game is back on Thursday (Kansas City Chiefs at New England Patriots) and readers should be well aware that the NFL Small Road Dogs system has also been profitable with just one losing season (2013) since 2005. At the time of writing, six potential selections for opening weekend.