The Perfect Punter - Week 19: The day foes turned to friends

Italian Football / Perfect Punter / 09 December 2009 / Leave a Comment

Cool as you like it: Bari's Paulo Barreto has a deserved drink during an eye-catching performance against Napoli at the weekend which made the Perfect Punter go some way to forgiving him for previous sins.

"At least you owe me in the warped, punting obsessed belief system that exists in my head and my fingertips and nowhere else."

In Week 19 The Perfect Punter tells why Paulo Barreto and Fabio Quagliarella, not exactly two of the most celebrated footballers in Serie A, now hold a special place in his punting heart.

A redemptive tale of two footballers this week, because you'll know from previous instalments that this column is capable of holding a serious grudge. Brian Howard, Pilates pensioners, Udinese: whoever you might be, if you stand in the way of a winning bet then you owe me. At least you owe me in the warped, punting obsessed belief system that exists in my head and my fingertips and nowhere else.

After a string of the most inconsistent performances I've ever seen, Udinese cost me more money last season than any football team has ever done, and much of the blame for that fell at the two left feet of Fabio Quagliarella, a man who alternates 35 yard wonder goals with inexplicable misses, the former coming with ten minutes to go of a game in which you've backed a 0-0 draw, the latter nearly always at 1-1 when over 2.5 goals have seemed a certainty. Quagliarella is now playing for his hometown club, Napoli, and they're playing in the same infuriating style. So it was clearly the player's fault, and I should really absolve Udinese, now a model of consistency, of all blame.

The last time that we heard from Paulo Barreto he was standing naked on top of the crossbar at the Luigi Ferraris in Genoa, belting out the theme tune to Surprise Surprise as a suitable penance for having missed a last minute penalty for Bari which cost me a fortune. Barreto is one of those infuriating players who seems to have talent oozing out of every pore and yet has absolutely no idea what to do with it.

He has tricks, and vision, and a first touch to die for, and he managed 23 goals in Serie B last season, but it would be fair to say that his A game has stayed firmly in the second division. On Sunday, Quagliarella and Barreto came head to head as Napoli played Bari in the manic melting pot of the San Paolo, and I watched the first half with a mixture of disbelief and pure hatred. I hadn't had a bet, but there they both were: brilliant touches, finding space, great positions, nothing to show for it. It was scarcely believable that the game should still be goalless at half time, and even less so that people on Betfair were prepared to lay [3.15] for over 1.5 goals, and then a series of similarly ludicrous prices for 2.5, 3.5 and 4.5. Many of those layers are robots, putting up prices which are time related and nothing else, and with the game needing just a single goal to open it up, it seemed like the perfect time to strike, the ideal moment to once again put my faith in Fabio and Paulo. Surely they could get it right one day.

I remembered what Warren Buffett said about using the market to your advantage, not simply as a guide, and I needed the courage of my convictions that I was right, and that the market was entirely wrong. I was in Italy, I was watching, these other people were in front of a computer screen, and weren't. So decent sized bets on there being 2,3,4 and 5 goals were placed, and I waited for these two magnificent nightmares to pay me back what they owed me. After four minutes of the second half, I sensed that something might be up when Barreto timed a run brilliantly, broke the offside trap, and slotted Bari into a shock lead. Miraculously, he had finally come good, and the miracle grew ever odder as Quagliarella produced a fantastic equaliser five minutes later. The first bet had copped, and I wasn't in the mood for trading. Barreto created a second Bari goal, Quagliarella was instrumental in another equaliser, and suddenly it was 2-2 with fifteen minutes to find a winner, and produce the fifth goal that would make me a profit to just about wipe out all the bets that these two had cost me. And then, bizarrely, as Bari were reduced to ten and Napoli pressed, Quagliarella reverted to type.

Headed chance - missed. Right foot shot - missed. Goal disallowed. Barreto had been substituted, but he had paid his dues and it was down to Fabio. And just as I cursed him and gave up on him, he broke the offside trap, he bore down on goal, and this time he didn't panic, didn't fall over, and produced an exquisite finish to make it 3-2 to Napoli and an over 4.5 goal bonanza.

So my villains turned into heroes, and in a suitably festive spirit I wanted to show you that there are good stories to tell as well as bad ones. Fabio, Paulo and me are now quits, and I wish them well for the rest of the season. But after that one crazy afternoon, I'm not going to suddenly trust them. From this point on, I'm avoiding Napoli and Bari and will put Sunday down to a glorious one off, a ray of punting sunshine that will never be repeated. But good and bad, I thank them both for the memories.

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