Football Picks – Africa Cup Final and Spain

Millwall – Derby
Millwall must have gotten a tremendous boost in this week’s rematch in the FA Cup. They beat Southampton 3-2 away from home, having been down 2-1 with about 15 minutes to go. They lie just above the relegationline but are really too strong for such a low position.

Derby enjoyed a really nice series lately, but they are a funny side which oftens delivers results in series.

When they launched their ‘Christmas time’-specials, which ended up bringing in 16 points from 18 possible, they had only picked up four points from the preivious 24 possible.

Now they lost 3-2 away to Barnsley last week, so maybe they are starting a new downward streak? They have lost their last three visits to The New Den, and there are nice odds on offer for four in a row.

Genk – Lokeren
Lokeren has lost four out of 12 away matches this season, which is basically ok, but let’s take a closer look at whom they’ve lost against on their travels.

We’re talking about Anderlecht, Gent, Club Bruges and Standard Liege. These four clubs are number 1, 2, 3 and 4 in the table and are also among the four best home teams.

Kortrijk in fifth place, Lokeren have yet to meet away from home, but they lost 4-1 at home to Kortrijk.

Genk is number six, is an even better home team than
Gent, and since there are indications that Lokeren find it difficult to deal with the best sides in the league, we’ll go hunting for a home win. Lokeren has lost their last four visits here.

Valencia – Sporting Gijon
This could seem like a definite home win at the first look of it but let’s go into details.

January 5 Valencia defeated Sevilla in the cup and subsequently played a draw with Villarreal in the league. January 11 they played the cup at Sevilla, which they lost. Three days later, they lost at home against Sociedad in the league.

January 19 Valencia beat Levante in the cup. In the league that was followed up by a draw against Osasuna. Then they defeated Levante once again in the Cup, which was followed up by a draw in the league at Santander’s.

Then they played 1-1 against Barcelona in the Cup tournament, which was followed by a 0-0 with Atletico Madrid in the league, and then finally, last Wednesday they lost 2-0 at Barcelona’s in the cup.

Finally we’ve arrived at this match, and let’s just try and summarize: they have played five cup-matches this year and failed to win in the league in the following weekend every time.

Moreover, it is inevitable that a cup match against Barcelona has costa lot of effort, both physically and mentally, and it’s also quite funny to see how Sporting Gijon have performed at Mestalla.

They have not lost any of their previous four visits here, so all things considered it looks like a monster odds, we are dealing with here.

Zambia – Cote d’Ivoire
Ivory Coast has so far gone through the tournament without conceding a single goal in and actually they have kept a clean sheet in their last seven matches.

Six of those seven games has also gone under 2.5 goals, the only exception was the quarter-final against host nation Equatorial Guinea, who ran out of strength and lost 3-0.

Zambia have completed their last three matches without conceding a goal and finals in the Africa Cup of Nations rarely offer a lot of goals.

10 of the last 13 finals have gone under 2.5 goals, including the last three
which have ended 1-0, 1-0 and 0-0. In the latter the Ivory Coast was
involved, and their previous attempt at the title, back in 1992 ended…0-0.