{"id":11251,"date":"2015-08-20T09:03:49","date_gmt":"2015-08-20T08:03:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.betangel.com\/blog_wp\/?p=11251"},"modified":"2015-08-30T15:21:20","modified_gmt":"2015-08-30T14:21:20","slug":"the-curious-story-behind-brentford-midtjylland","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.betfairtradingblog.com\/blog_wp\/2015\/08\/20\/the-curious-story-behind-brentford-midtjylland\/","title":{"rendered":"The curious story behind Brentford &#038; Midtjylland"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"color: #000000;\">Midtjylland meet Southampton this evening in the Europa league. When Saints drew Vitesse in the last round I wasn&#8217;t pleased they had drawn the top seeded side. As the draw came out for the next round I had have an eye on Midtjylland. Sods law dictated that they were immediately paired with Southampton. Why my interested in this club? For that you need to look to <a href=\"https:\/\/atthematch.com\/site\/article\/388\"><span style=\"color: #000000;\">Matthew Benham<\/span><\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"color: #000000;\">Benham is an Oxford gradute turned pro gambler. He has fingers in many pies, but has sprung into the limelight for his involvement in football; particularly with his <a href=\"https:\/\/www.brentfordfc.co.uk\/news\/article\/matthew-benham-acquires-100-per-cent-ownership-of-brentford-fc-1389276.aspx\"><span style=\"color: #000000;\">acquisition of Brentford<\/span><\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"color: #000000;\">I first came across Benham at <a href=\"https:\/\/www.smartodds.co.uk\/\"><span style=\"color: #000000;\">Smartodds<\/span><\/a>. As I have spent a lot of time modelling sports over a number of years there were of interest to me. We effectively compete in the same markets. I started modelling football markets back when I was\u00a0young so I understand it really well and Football has long been a passion of Benham.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"color: #000000;\"><strong>Brentford<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"color: #000000;\">Over time Benham has made a good deal of money on Footy and that led to him acquiring his childhood club Brentford. I once considered getting involved with a football club from the ownership side, it was a bit of a blue sky moment. I would have needed to raise funding and I was also\u00a0put off by the\u00a0adage that the fastest way to be a millionaire, is to be a billionaire and buy a football club! I decided to do it by proxy, but that&#8217;s another story&#8230;&#8230;<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"color: #000000;\">Since arriving at Brentford Benham has reshaped the team to one with an <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/football\/2015\/jul\/27\/how-fc-midtjylland-analytical-route-champions-league-brentford-matthew-benham\"><span style=\"color: #000000;\">approach involving analytics<\/span><\/a>. Lots of clubs do this now, but visibility is high at Brentford but a little quieter at competing clubs with the same approach. There in lies a problem, as soon as an edge is known the edge is reduced, so I think visibility of it may reduce its effectiveness as well as encouraging others to follow suit.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"color: #000000;\"><strong>Midtjylland<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"color: #000000;\">Benham started to get involved with Midtjlland after a meeting with ex-player <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=wwqZiyZYB00\"><span style=\"color: #000000;\">Rasmus Ankersen<\/span><\/a>, who is now also at Brentford. The club was\u00a0only formed in 1999, but really hit the headlines last season winning the\u00a0Danish title against the odds. Is this a portent to Brentford&#8217;s progress? I doubt it, the English game has a lot of money floating around it and as I pointed out in another blog post, money talks!<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"color: #000000;\">However, if Southampton want to close out their play off and progress to the group stages of the Europa league they will need to watch out at set pieces.\u00a0\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/football\/blog\/2015\/feb\/22\/brentford-mathematical-modelling-denmark\"><span style=\"color: #000000;\">Midtjylland have become set-piece kings, averaging a almost a goal per game from dead-ball situations<\/span><\/a>, which is very high.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"color: #000000;\">I&#8217;m trusting that Southampton will have done their research!\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"color: #000000;\"><strong>Matchbook<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"color: #000000;\">If you are Brentford fan then you couldn&#8217;t have failed to notice that <a href=\"https:\/\/www.soccerex.com\/news\/2015\/07\/brentford-seal-record-deal-matchbookcom\"><span style=\"color: #000000;\">they picked up a new sponsor in the form of Matchbook<\/span><\/a>. The sponsorship was a generous amount and should help Brentford in the coming season.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"color: #000000;\">The link? Guess who owns Matchbook, yep, Matthew Benham.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter\" src=\"https:\/\/www.brentfordfc.co.uk\/cms_images\/buzz-and-buzzette-4x3277-325353_478x359.JPG\" alt=\"\" width=\"478\" height=\"358\" \/><\/p>\n<div class=\"pvc_clear\"><\/div>\n<p id=\"pvc_stats_11251\" class=\"pvc_stats all  \" data-element-id=\"11251\" style=\"\"><i class=\"pvc-stats-icon medium\" aria-hidden=\"true\"><svg aria-hidden=\"true\" focusable=\"false\" data-prefix=\"far\" data-icon=\"chart-bar\" role=\"img\" xmlns=\"http:\/\/www.w3.org\/2000\/svg\" viewBox=\"0 0 512 512\" class=\"svg-inline--fa fa-chart-bar fa-w-16 fa-2x\"><path fill=\"currentColor\" d=\"M396.8 352h22.4c6.4 0 12.8-6.4 12.8-12.8V108.8c0-6.4-6.4-12.8-12.8-12.8h-22.4c-6.4 0-12.8 6.4-12.8 12.8v230.4c0 6.4 6.4 12.8 12.8 12.8zm-192 0h22.4c6.4 0 12.8-6.4 12.8-12.8V140.8c0-6.4-6.4-12.8-12.8-12.8h-22.4c-6.4 0-12.8 6.4-12.8 12.8v198.4c0 6.4 6.4 12.8 12.8 12.8zm96 0h22.4c6.4 0 12.8-6.4 12.8-12.8V204.8c0-6.4-6.4-12.8-12.8-12.8h-22.4c-6.4 0-12.8 6.4-12.8 12.8v134.4c0 6.4 6.4 12.8 12.8 12.8zM496 400H48V80c0-8.84-7.16-16-16-16H16C7.16 64 0 71.16 0 80v336c0 17.67 14.33 32 32 32h464c8.84 0 16-7.16 16-16v-16c0-8.84-7.16-16-16-16zm-387.2-48h22.4c6.4 0 12.8-6.4 12.8-12.8v-70.4c0-6.4-6.4-12.8-12.8-12.8h-22.4c-6.4 0-12.8 6.4-12.8 12.8v70.4c0 6.4 6.4 12.8 12.8 12.8z\" class=\"\"><\/path><\/svg><\/i> <img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"16\" height=\"16\" alt=\"Loading\" src=\"https:\/\/www.betfairtradingblog.com\/blog_wp\/wp-content\/plugins\/page-views-count\/ajax-loader-2x.gif\" border=0 \/><\/p>\n<div class=\"pvc_clear\"><\/div>\n\n<div class=\"twitter-share\"><a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?via=betangel\" class=\"twitter-share-button\">Tweet<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Midtjylland meet Southampton this evening in the Europa league. When Saints drew Vitesse in the last round I wasn&#8217;t pleased they had drawn the top seeded side. As the draw came out for the next round I had have an eye on Midtjylland. Sods law dictated that they were immediately paired with Southampton. Why my [&hellip;]<\/p>\n<div class=\"pvc_clear\"><\/div>\n<p id=\"pvc_stats_11251\" class=\"pvc_stats all  \" data-element-id=\"11251\" style=\"\"><i class=\"pvc-stats-icon medium\" aria-hidden=\"true\"><svg aria-hidden=\"true\" focusable=\"false\" data-prefix=\"far\" data-icon=\"chart-bar\" role=\"img\" xmlns=\"http:\/\/www.w3.org\/2000\/svg\" viewBox=\"0 0 512 512\" class=\"svg-inline--fa fa-chart-bar fa-w-16 fa-2x\"><path fill=\"currentColor\" d=\"M396.8 352h22.4c6.4 0 12.8-6.4 12.8-12.8V108.8c0-6.4-6.4-12.8-12.8-12.8h-22.4c-6.4 0-12.8 6.4-12.8 12.8v230.4c0 6.4 6.4 12.8 12.8 12.8zm-192 0h22.4c6.4 0 12.8-6.4 12.8-12.8V140.8c0-6.4-6.4-12.8-12.8-12.8h-22.4c-6.4 0-12.8 6.4-12.8 12.8v198.4c0 6.4 6.4 12.8 12.8 12.8zm96 0h22.4c6.4 0 12.8-6.4 12.8-12.8V204.8c0-6.4-6.4-12.8-12.8-12.8h-22.4c-6.4 0-12.8 6.4-12.8 12.8v134.4c0 6.4 6.4 12.8 12.8 12.8zM496 400H48V80c0-8.84-7.16-16-16-16H16C7.16 64 0 71.16 0 80v336c0 17.67 14.33 32 32 32h464c8.84 0 16-7.16 16-16v-16c0-8.84-7.16-16-16-16zm-387.2-48h22.4c6.4 0 12.8-6.4 12.8-12.8v-70.4c0-6.4-6.4-12.8-12.8-12.8h-22.4c-6.4 0-12.8 6.4-12.8 12.8v70.4c0 6.4 6.4 12.8 12.8 12.8z\" class=\"\"><\/path><\/svg><\/i> <img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"16\" height=\"16\" alt=\"Loading\" src=\"https:\/\/www.betfairtradingblog.com\/blog_wp\/wp-content\/plugins\/page-views-count\/ajax-loader-2x.gif\" border=0 \/><\/p>\n<div class=\"pvc_clear\"><\/div>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1359],"tags":[2159,384,2167,2161,2160,229],"class_list":["post-11251","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-football_trading_strategies","tag-brentford","tag-europa-league","tag-matchbook","tag-matthew-benham","tag-midtjylland","tag-southampton"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.betfairtradingblog.com\/blog_wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11251"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.betfairtradingblog.com\/blog_wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.betfairtradingblog.com\/blog_wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.betfairtradingblog.com\/blog_wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.betfairtradingblog.com\/blog_wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11251"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.betfairtradingblog.com\/blog_wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11251\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11252,"href":"https:\/\/www.betfairtradingblog.com\/blog_wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11251\/revisions\/11252"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.betfairtradingblog.com\/blog_wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11251"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.betfairtradingblog.com\/blog_wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11251"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.betfairtradingblog.com\/blog_wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11251"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}