Golden Boot should be odds on not to exceed six goals

The Golden Boot is one of the most revered individual prizes up for grabs at FIFA World Cups and it is time for Playing The Long Ball to take a look at one of the exotic Golden Boot-related markets for the 2014 FIFA World Cup Brazil.

It is too early to decide upon a 2014 FIFA World Cup Brazil selection but it is a fine time to identify where the value lies in betting on the total number of goals that the Golden Boot winner scores, using historical data and street smarts to highlight where one can strike an incorrectly priced bet.

Currently only Betfair’s sportsbook is betting on the total number of goals that the 2014 FIFA World Cup Brazil Golden Boot winner scores but it just takes one bookmaker to make a rick and often it is markets on which there is only one set of odds that present the best opportunities to punters.

One thinks that Betfair’s sportsbook has gone up with the wrong 2014 FIFA World Cup Brazil Golden Boot total goals favourite. Betfair’s sportsbook has priced up eight or more goals as its favourite at odds of 3.75, with five goals at odds of 4.30, six goals at odds of 4.50 and seven goals at odds of 5.00. Strangely, Betfair’s sportsbook has not put up odds about fewer than five goals, although history suggests that fewer than five goals would not take out the award.

France striker Just Fontaine scored a record 13 goals in the 1958 FIFA World Cup Sweden, a mark that is 1.01 to remain either unequalled or unsurpassed in the next 100 years. Fontaine scored six goals in France’s three group games and his knockout stage exploits included four goals in France’s 6-3 defeat of Germany in the play-off match for third place.

West Germany forward Gerd Muller, also known as Der Bomber, fired home 10 goals in the 1970 FIFA World Cup Mexico but no player has reached double digits since that tournament 44 years ago. The subsequent FIFA World Cup Golden Boot winners have been Grzegorz Lato (1974 FIFA World Cup West Germany, seven goals), Mario Kempes (1978 FIFA World Cup Argentina, six goals), Paolo Rossi (1982 FIFA World Cup Spain, six goals), Gary Lineker (1986 FIFA World Cup Mexico, six goals), Salvatore Schillaci (1990 FIFA World Cup Italy, six goals), Oleg Salenko and Hristo Stoichkov (1994 FIFA World Cup United States of America, six goals apiece), Davor Suker (1998 FIFA World Cup France, six goals), Ronaldo (2002 FIFA World Cup Korea Japan, eight goals), Miroslav Klose (2006 FIFA World Cup Germany, six goals) and Thomas Muller (2010 FIFA World Cup South Africa, six goals).

Therefore, it is remarkable that Betfair’s sportsbook is favouring eight or more goals, especially when one knows the full story concerning Ronaldo in the 2002 FIFA World Cup Korea Japan. Ronaldo lodged an appeal after FIFA credited Costa Rica defender Luis Marin with Brazil’s first goal in the 5-2 win for the subsequent champion team. FIFA ruled in Ronaldo’s favour and he ended the event with eight goals.

With every passing year there are fewer easy games. Defences are getting tighter and this is the era of squad rotation in which coaches do not field their strongest line-ups all the time. All this means that the days of FIFA World Cup Golden Boot winners scoring heaps of goals are gone – long gone.

Either five or six goals has been the FIFA World Cup Golden Boot tally in eight of the last nine tournaments. Betfair’s sportsbook is offering dutched odds of 2.20 that the 2014 FIFA World Cup Golden Boot winner takes out the prize with either five or six goals. One is getting odds against about an eventuality that is odds on according to recent history.