Have you noticed that both teams aren't scoring a whole lot?
Mum's Bet reveals a tactic that's been very successful over the last few nights of group stage action
I’m still in Spain sucking the life out of every last ray of sunshine and bottle of Rioja I can lay my hands on. Don’t worry, the kids are all fine and if anything happens in the pool, I’m David Hasselhoff the hell out of it. Besides, wine is good for creating that dramatic slow motion running effect.
I wish I could say I was the bigger person and I take no joy in the fact the weather looks shite at home, but I’m not. I’m honestly reveling in the absolutely awful weather you are having. If that makes me a bad person, so be it. I can be a very selfish-interested, obviously contented, perfectly tanned, bad person. Kind of like an auxiliary Kardashian.
My contentedness was severely boosted with an evening of great wine, great food and realising that the way to actually watch football in Spain is to go to a local’s house. So there we are last night having a discussion over a couple of beers, some rose wine and a lamb dinner that involved a 50 year old wine cooked in my very own kitchen by my au pair’s dad. When I say we had a discussion we didn’t really – we said ‘mucho gracias’ more than five times and made ridiculous arm movements to heighten how much we thought of the food. That makes you look very cultured and not just a boorish foreigner, right?
Antoine desperately wanted us to know how good the red was that accompanied the lamb, and made silent gestures at the bottle as my husband and brother nodded ‘Si, si, si’. No problem drinking it mind, both bottles. By all accounts when the ladies left the table the level of cringe and silence was greatly exacerbated. You see women talk, they communicate – it actually does not matter if we understand each other. My au pair’s mother (Angela) and I have engaged in full conversations, smiling and talking over each other, both nodding vehemently and agreeing with each other despite not having an absolute rashers about what we each are saying. There was one revelation however, she kept referring to my au pair as Cari, she is known to us as Mari …. hmmm it’s only been two years.
‘Oh yes, we cherish your daughter deeply. Pari is like a member of the family. I mean Cari .. Mari … whatever … her right there’
The conversation turned to sport. I’m curious as to how much do footballers actually get paid. I mean real money into their bank accounts. Weekly. Every week. Because you see, given the amount of time I have spent watching football on this holiday I am confused. Yes partly to do with overconsumption of the local grape but I believed, yes in my innocence that the end game objective of a football game was to get the ball in the back of your opponent’s net more times than they do it to you. My go to bet is now BTNTS – both teams NOT to score:
- Two games Sunday night – BOOM!
- Two more games to chase the Monday blues away – ANOTHER BOOM!
- Three games out of four on Tuesday – BACK OF THE NET! Er … Back of one net.
So this week’s Mum’s Bet is based around minimal goals. Yes, that sounds about as thrilling as a night of communicating through poorly understood hand gestures to Spanish people, it seems to be the nature of the beast that is the Euros. Seven of the last eight games have obliged so Acca-ing up the Both Teams Not To Score bet in trebles and a four-fold looks to make sense.
Both Teams Not To Score
Hungary v Portugal –
Iceland v Austria –
Italy v Ireland –
Sweden v Belgium –
Fourfold plays 13/2
Trebles pay 3/1, 3/1, 3/1, 7/2
The tournament could be over for Ireland tonight and the next time we qualify for a major tournament, we might well be enjoying lamb cooked in 50 year old wine from the year 2016, but at least we could end up with a win before heading home.