With the international break drawing to a close, attention turns to club football betting.
Juventus vs Genoa
Odds
Juventus
Draw
Genoa
Odds courtesy of 1xBet. Correct at time of publishing and subject to change.
In theory, the bigger clubs are more likely to suffer from an international break hangover. That’s because they tend to have more players go away on international duty than others do.
Those with significant South American contingents are particularly vulnerable. That’s because players playing in CONMEBOL or CONCACAF regions have a huge distance to travel to come home. This can often lead to them missing their club’s first game back.
With this month’s action with internationals being largely competitive, the focus shifts. World Cup qualifying is taking place across all continents, while some European nations are also in the Nations League.
A lack of friendly action means that most nations will be fielding their strong XI’s across both games. That’s not great news for club managers, particularly those of bigger clubs. Most top club managers have openly expressed their dissatisfaction with international breaks.
The final international games take place across Tuesday night/Wednesday morning. This means some players might only return to action a day before their club game after recovery time. This disrupts club preparations, and managers may need to rotate their squads.
Liverpool have shown this to be true this season. Argentina’s Alexis Mac Allister has only started one of their three post-international fixtures this season. Colombia’s Luis Diaz has also been left out of the starting lineup in two of their three post-international games.
Some Premier League clubs who are out of the FA Cup are lucky enough to have the first weekend off. That allows for extra recovery time before a midweek round. Other sides, however, won’t be so lucky, and there may be value there to explore.
It’s worth looking at how the bigger teams, which tend to lose more players, are likely to perform. Juventus, in particular, could struggle as most of their stars have gone off to their respective nations.
Juve are already going through a rough patch as it is, having lost four of their last six games. Couple that with the fact they won’t have much time to prepare for this game, and suddenly Genoa seem overpriced. In total, they have had 11 players called up to their countries.
In contrast, Genoa have only had three players called up. This has afforded them more time on the training pitch to prepare for this clash and that could make the difference. They have had more time to work on team shape and strategy, which could prove key in deciding the result.
Notably, Juve have only won one of their three post-international games this season so far. They are not the only ones facing struggles. Other Serie A teams like Napoli, AC Milan, Atalanta, Inter Milan and Torino have all lost 10+ players to international duty.
The flip side of this argument is that these teams are well-equipped with big squads to cope with the demands of international breaks. After the November international break, there wasn’t a single shock result where a big club was overturned by a small one. Manchester City were beaten 4-0 by Tottenham in a big-six battle, but that was it.
Elsewhere, the majority of top clubs won their matches, including Arsenal, Chelsea, Liverpool, Real Madrid, Atletico Madrid, Bayern Munich, Bayer Leverkusen, Borussia Dortmund, Inter Milan and Atalanta. This suggests that backing those with bigger squads is the way to go after the break.
Some of those English clubs have extended breaks when they come back due to no FA Cup involvement. They should be able to field full-strength teams in the Premier League’s midweek round.
Overall, most other big clubs have favourable fixtures in the first weekend back. Finding true value may be tricky, but history suggests the big clubs tend to deliver regardless of who’s available.