As the countdown begins for the major European leagues to embark on a new campaign, there are still a number of exciting football leagues around the globe to take advantage of from a betting perspective, including:
KickOff offers insightful statistics, football predictions and gives great football tips to ensure that football betters can make gains from Columbia to Iceland, when the traditionally more popular leagues are having their brief hiatuses. This article will highlight the great opportunity that some of the more obscure leagues can offer us as football betters.
Allsvenskan
The Swedish top-flight, played between late March to early November, was founded in 1924. The 16 teams in this division all meet each other twice, resulting in a 30 match campaign, for a total of 240 matches.
Malmö FF have won the last two Championships and are the most successful club in the country, having celebrated 25 titles. The winners of the Allsvenskan qualify for the first qualifying round of the UEFA Champions League.
Stats regarding the 2021 Allsvenskan season
638 goals were scored, averaging 2.66 per match.
Home wins in 50% of the matches, compared to 26% away wins and 23% draws.
Coincidentally, there were 2 or 3 goals were scored in a match 55 times each.
After dividing the matches into 10 minute intervals, the fewest number of goals were scored between minute 0-10 (51), with the most being scored between minute 81-90 (108).
Zlatan Ibrahimovic started his professional career in Allsvenskan with Malmö in 1999
Irish Premier Division
The League of Ireland Premier Division was formed in 1985 and since 2003 has operated as a summer league, starting in February, and ending in November. The most successful club in the competition is Dundalk with eight titles, whilst Shamrock Rovers have won the last two.
Stats regarding the 2021 Irish Premier Division season
458 goals were scored over the 180 matches, resulting in 2.54 per match.
Just 4 of the 180 matches played ended in a goalless draw.
After dividing the matches into 10 minute intervals, the fewest number of goals were scored between minute 0-10 (27), with the most being scored between minute 81-90 (82).
The three most common scores were all under 2.5 goals, with 1-1 30 times and 0-1 and 1-0 21 times each.
Serie A
What may come as a surprise to many European football followers is that the Brazilian top-flight, formally known as the Campeonato Brasileiro Série A, was voted by International Federation of Football History & Statistics (IFFHS) as the world’s strongest league in 2021.
Played from May to December, Serie A is comparable to the English Premier League in the fact that all 20 teams play each other twice, home, and away.
Stats regarding the 2021 Serie A season
2 goals were scored on average per match, which is considerably lower than the other leagues looked at so far.
The most common result, 1-0, was recorded 59 times, 11 times more than the next most common result, 1-1.
The away team scored 0.94 goals per match on average.
Over 2.5 goals were scored in the first half just 29 times.
Veikkausliiga
As with other cold climate European countries, league matches in Finland are played in summer, with the schedule ordinarily running from April to October.
The premier division of Finnish football consists of 12 teams and was founded in 1990. Although the format and number of participating teams fluctuate frequently, initially each team plays each other twice. After these matches, the league split in half, with the top six sides playing in the championship group and the other six playing the challenge group. Each team plays another five matches at this stage.
Helsingin Jalkapalloklubi, otherwise known as HJK Helsinki or HJK, are comfortably the county’s most successful club, having won or finished runners up in 20 of the 32 seasons since the Veikkausliiga’s foundation in 1990. In total they’ve won 31 titles, whilst no other club has reached double figures for league titles won.
Stats regarding the 2021 Veikkausliiga season
2 goals were scored in over 25% of the 162 matches played in the regular season.
The fewest number of goals were scored between minute 0-15, with the most scored between minute 76-90
Just under a third of matches played had no goals in the first half.
There was a clean sheet involved in 63% of matches, 102 of the 162 played.
J2 League
The second strongest league in Japan has existed since 1972 but was only professionalised during the 1999 season with 10 clubs. Since 2012 there have been 22 teams in the division, playing in a double round-robin format.
Stats regarding the 2021 J2 League season
The two most common scorelines, 0-1 and 1-1, accounted for 114 of the 462 matches played, which is just under a quarter.
39 goals were scored on average per match, with 91 of the 1102 goals scored during the first ten minutes, compared to 184 scored in the final 10, which are the lowest and highest respectively.
A little more than a third of the matches played (155) had no goals in the first half, with 0-1 the next most popular scoreline at the break occurring 94 times.
There were more than 2.5 goals scored in 8% of first half matches.
