What’s Messi worth to Barcelona?
I recently asked a similar question of Gareth Bale and last night made me feel a move for Mr Bale is almost certain this summer when Spurs fail to qualify for the champions league.
But back to last night.
I must admit I was anticipating that Barcelona would ‘go for it’ from the off in an attempt to get an early goal and put pressure on Bayern early on, but it never came. Bad tactics, poor motivation? It seemed something conspired to make Barcelona look like a Sunday pub team against the dominant Munich side last night.
As for the initial question, the market was pricing in a 55% chance of a Barcelona win before the match kicked off and when the team sheet came out and Messi was on the bench they dropped over 10% in implied chance terms. That caught me out too, but on reflection it was fully justified. The market got it right, again.
Category: Football trading strategies
