Soccer questions

[Prop Man]

Thanks for having a forum on soccer. I consider myself clueless in the sport, and have a few questions:

In the past, I saw some props on the total number of Corners and Shirts. I assumed corners are when the "attacking" team gets a free kick from the corner of the opponent's side.

1. Are these props offered on a regular basis?

2. Is there a relationship between the number of corners and totals? In a game that's expected to be higher scoring, is there a corresponding expectation for more corners?

3. What are "shirts"?

[Clint Westwood]

Thanks for having a forum on soccer. I consider myself clueless in the sport, and have a few questions:

In the past, I saw some props on the total number of Corners and Shirts. I assumed corners are when the "attacking" team gets a free kick from the corner of the opponent's side.

1. Are these props offered on a regular basis?

2. Is there a relationship between the number of corners and totals? In a game that's expected to be higher scoring, is there a corresponding expectation for more corners?

3. What are "shirts"?

Good to see you in here, Prop Man, asking questions about 'real football' lol!

Anyway, to answer your questions:

1) Yes, but only for games in the larger leagues, particularly televised games (ie basically every English Premiership game, Spain, Italy etc). A quick way to check is to go to, say, Bet365, call up the soccer lines and look at the 'alternate lines' they have at the end of each match. If the number is 24 or lower, the markets offered are generally just correct scores and the like. When they are up to the high 30's, the additional props you are after are likely in there.

These props also tend to be made available closer to game time than when the initial lines are set. There are none available yet at 365 for the midweek games, for example, but they will be up by tomorrow night most likely.

2) Seeing as corners are the result of attacking play being forced over the defence's own goal line by themselves (under pressure from the attacking team) then it does figure that games with a high-total expectation should also have a corresponding higher corner count.

An interesting exception (of sorts) to this mind-set are Stoke City - because their Rory Delap posesses a quite unique ability to throw the ball at a spped, distance and trajectory similar to a corner kick, some opponents have deliberately given themselves to conceding corners in favour of having to defend the different options Stoke have from their throw-ins!

3) Any prop involving 'shirts' is most likely an over/under total for the sum of whatever shirt/squad number the players involved in that market are wearing. The first choice players of a soccer team tend to own the 1-11 numbers but mid-season signings and promotions from the reserves, youth team etc may see some players with high squad numbers getting regular playing time.

Look for things like Nemanja Vidic for Man United (number 15) who scores more than the expected norm for a centre half, mainly because United earn more corners and free kicks from their attacking play (and generous refereeing decisions in their favour). Conversely, Aston Villa's Laursen (very reliant on set pieces as a team) wears no. 5.

Amr Zaki (centre forward for Wigan) wears 13 after signing in the summer for them, whereas most centre forwards wear 9 or 10 as a rule. Then there is Steven Gerrard for Liverpool - he is used basically as a striker (as is Ronaldo for Man U) and their shirt numbers are 8 and 7 respectively.

And just look out for the psychos/head-cases for bookings markets - some of their shirt numbers might be very high by way of comparison and might give you something to exploit.

I need to look at the prop side of soccer betting some more so I'll do that and see if I can find anything tangible to share with you. Hopefully I've answered your initial questions sufficiently in the meantime, though.

Thanks for stopping by, and don't hesitate to fire any more questions on here.

[Prop Man]

Thanks! I just did some analysis of Jersey number for the Super Bowl (such as the first player to score wears an odd or even jersey), sounds like shirts is the way you guys say jersey across the pond.

As for corners, are these stats regularly listed in boxscores after the game? In my spare time after the Super Bowl, maybe it would be interesting to put together a database of corners relative to totals. BTW, where would I get totals for past games?

[Clint Westwood]

www.betexplorer.com

for line histories. I'd throw out the outliers they use in there, mainly because most of the time they are way out of line with the rest of the sample, personally. You have to dig around a bit on the site (go to 'soccer', then 'country', then 'league' (and date), then 'results' and then choose from the 3-way histories, asian handicaps and totals. Unfortunately you have to click each game individually but at least the results are comprehensive.

Corners are included in some box scores. bbc.co.uk and sportinglife.com 's game summaries list these events. They are probably listed on various books' results pages too.

And it does seem that our 'shirts' are your 'jerseys' by the sound of things :)