Football Bet Of The Day: Parisians to be thwarted by Sochaux

Sochaux v Paris FC
Monday 1 August 19:45

Well done to Tobias Gourlay in Scandanavia yesterday, hitting an Over 3.5 Goals bet with Elfsborg and Hacken playing out a thrilling 4-4 draw. All Overs bets should end in such entertaining fashion.

I'm standing in for my chum Kevin Hatchard for a few days at the FBOTD tiller, and I only qualified to do so as writers of this column must live in north London. I've completed the trifecta with location, so hopefully we can go back-to-back. We usually make a reference to each writer's journey on the football globe, but this time Kev is actually in Spain.

It's Ligue 2 action for us tonight and Olivier Guegan's Sochaux play Thierry Laurey's Paris FC.

There's some fairly familiar names operating in the second tier in France, with the likes of Guingamp, Bastia and Le Havre here. None are bigger than Bordeaux, however, and the former Ligue 1 champions started out with a draw at the weekend.

And that's the bet here at 3.39/4 as both sides are evenly matched on the market at 2.47/5 for the home win and 3.211/5 for the away win.

Both teams are very evenly matched on their two previous campaigns, as they finished in fourth and fifth last year and fifth and seventh the season before - collecting a whopping 49 draws over that period.

Draws may not be any good for either in their quest to get out of Ligue 2, and in Sochaux's case, they were relegated in 2014 and have failed to return to the top flight. Sochaux are known for bringing through young talent from their Academy, and the latest could be the wonderfully named Alan Virginius, an attacking player who has scored five in 12 for the French U19s and has made 49 appearances.

A goal from him and a 1-1 will do just fine for us at the Stade Auguste Bonal.