Betting Money being put on Ivory Coast

April 15th, 2006 | by: WC Bob | View Comments

Buried in this article, which mentions you can get 32-1 odds that David Beckham will sport dreadlocks at the World Cup, is an interesting revelation that a fair number of people are betting on Ivory Coast to win the tournament. Graham Sharpe, a spokesperson for William Hill, says, “There’s been a lot of money on the Ivory Coast and they’ve gone from 150-1 to 50-1. It’s the Premiership effect because Didier Drogba and Kolo Toure play for Ivory Coast. They were runners-up in the African Nation’s Cup. We have seen a lot of backing for them.” Were not sure if the money being wagered on the Elephants is coming from a bad gambler like Wayne Rooney, but we do think picking Ivory Coast to win the whole enchilada is a very bold and unwise pick.

For one thing, the Elephants are in the most difficult group. We’ve predicted that they will beat out Argentina and Netherlands to advance to the knockout rounds, but we wouldn’t bet our piggy bank on this happening, let alone for the team from Africa to go on to win the tournament.

From what we have seen of Ivory Coast the team has a lot of talented players, but it also has a backline that is too disorganized and too prone to mistakes to be a serious World Cup contender. The Elephants are a dangerous team, but they aren’t one of the top 10 contenders in our mind.

The article does bring up an interesting point about the Premiership effect. It is pretty easy to get caught up with players that you see on a regular basis. It is nearly impossible to follow every league in the world so a lot of times you develop a bias towards what you know. There are a lot of good World Cup players playing in leagues you rarely or never see. That is one reason why every four years there is a surprise team or two and there are players who come out of nowhere to ruin your betting predictions.

For what it is worth, our money is on Beckham going with a very traditional hairstyle but we foresee some kind of weird facial hair. You can take that to the bank.