Adding In The Euros

As you were told in the last post, at least one quarter-final in every World Cup from 1986 has had at least one match go to penalties. I hope some of you cashed in. I suspected it might be the Sweden v England game, but in the end this was a rather dull game and an efficient German-like performance from England.

It had been 16 years since we last had a two goal lead in a knockout game but unfortunately, I am old enough to remember Leon 1970, so it was only at 90+4 that I felt totally relaxed.

Not such a big sample size of course, but from 1986 the 16 World Cup semi-finals have produced 11 Half-Time Draws and 5 Full-Time Draws, of which four went to penalties. 

With an all-UEFA line-up, it's not unreasonable to include Euro Semi-Finals for a larger sample, and of the last 11 combined tournaments which featured Semi-Finals, 19 matches have gone to Extra-Time, an implied price of 2.32 while 27 matches were Half-Time Draws, an implied price of 1.63. 

From 1990, 24 of the 28 matches were decided by one goal or Drawn after 90 minutes, but the four that were comfortable wins includes three of the last four matches played.