valencia

Las Vegas - Heading back to Spain to take a look at Real Madrid vs. Valencia. Real beat Eibar (the 16th team in La Liga) 3-1 in the first game back, but Valencia is gonna be a much tougher game this afternoon, and not because I have one of their soccer jerseys. Yea, check out the jersey on Google, I'll wait....Okay, you feel me. The logo is a bat that surrounds a soccer ball with red & yellow horizontal stripes. SPECTACULAR!!!

Lemme tell you a little about Los Murcelagos, yes, The Bats. They are sitting in the 7th slot in the standings with 43 points, just four behind both Real Sociedad and Getafe for a spot in the UEFA Champions League. They've won 11, lost 7 with 10 draws. The Bats have swooped in for 39 goals and allowed 40, for a -1 goal differential. Gimme a second cause I gotta find out if bats swoop. Yup, confirmed, they swoop. Los Blancos are sitting in the second slot with 59 points, five behind Barcelona. Real has won 17, lost 3 with 8 draws. They've scored 52 goals and allowed 20, for a gorgeous +32 goal differential. Looked at some of Valencia's results and it seems that The Bats play better when the competition gets tougher. They actually beat Barcelona at home back in January, 2-0, and held Real Madrid to a 1-1 draw in Valencia. Also note that Real will NOT be playing at their normal home, the Bernabeu, but rather the Estadio Alfredo Di Stefano.

Even at a pretty stiff price, and at their home away from home, gotta grab me some Los Blancos for the W! Just a tickle. Also gotta grab Real to win the 1st half at only -$130 and throwing the BIG pile of chips at this prop. Then you can gimme Eden Hazard to score a goal at +$160. However, if you see Hazard on the bench at the start of the game, shift the chips over to Karim Benzema at -$120.

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