UEFA Changes

With seven of the eight EPL games this weekend having a team at odds-on, and the NBA on it's All-Star Break, it's looking like a quiet weekend for investments. 

The 20 midweek European first leg games produced just three Draws, which wasn't a surprise, especially given how many Home sides were favourite.  However, due to some changes this season, past results aren't necessarily a reliable indicator for what the future may hold.

The big changes are to the Europa League format, which no longer has a Round of 32 as such, but a Knockout Stage prior to the Round of 16 - which effectively is the same thing, the creation of a new third competition, i.e. the Europa Conference League, and perhaps most significantly of all, the abolition of the Away Goals Rule.

HKibuzz commented on my last post:

Interesting. The rule change about away goals will probably have some impact on these figures too. I suspect that in the more balanced games, the team playing away first might just be more conservative and be happy to settle for a draw and complete the job next, at home. They are no longer rewarded for taking risks away in the first leg. That might explain, in part, Real Madrid's very defensive strategy yesterday (along with PSG's good performance).

One of the justifications given by UEFA for scrapping this rule was that:

The impact of the rule now runs counter to its original purpose as, in fact, it now dissuades home teams – especially in first legs – from attacking, because they fear conceding a goal that would give their opponents a crucial advantage.

As HKibuzz suggests, the rule change means that Away teams are now disincentivised from pushing for that away goal, and will be happier with a 0:0 result than in previous seasons. In the past, while a goalless draw Away was often a decent result, it always left the worry of conceding at Home and thus requiring two goals to win, and so wasn't anywhere near as satisfying as a score draw. With the new rule, a 0:0 result is much better. 

From a betting perspective, since at least 2004 there has been a nice edge (ROI 13%) backing Home teams in First Leg games when the team is an odds-against favourite, and where the Draw is second favourite. Whether this continues remains to be seen.

As you might expect, the best strategies for betting on the Second Leg of ties vary depending on the First Leg result. There's certainly been a big difference in Second Leg matches following a 0:0 draw and those following a score-draw in the First Leg. 

In all Second Leg matches following a Draw, backing the Away team has an ROI of 9.4%, but backing the Away team after a 0:0 has an ROI of 27% increasing to 83% on matches with no clubs from the Big Five leagues involved. My suspicion is that in these games there is basically less interest, and lazy sportsbooks tend to overweight the win probability of the Home team knowing this is where the dumb money will go. It seems reasonable to assume that prices are more accurate for the likes of Real Madrid and AC Milan than for clubs such as Maccabi Haifa, FK Crvena Zvezda and Osmanlispor.