Football Bet of the Day: It's not a Nacional lottery if you back hosts

Strugglers to suffer again

Nacional v Cerrito
Thursday 21 July, 23:30

I write about the FBOTD Christmas list a fair bit on here (probably more than is necessary), and Gabriel Novaes was added to it last night, as his 95th-minute winner for Bragantino against Fortaleza gave us a 2.226/5 success on the Over 2.5 Goals market. Feliz Natal, Gabriel!

We'll stay in South America, and head to Uruguay, because Nacional are at home to whipping boys Cerrito in the top flight.

Nacional are top of their group in the intermediate round, having won four and drawn one of their five matches in this stage so far. In the Apertura section, they finished just four points behind Liverpool (don't panic, Reds fans, there is a Uruguayan version), while Cerrito ended up bottom, with just eight points from an available 45.

Cerrito have been bad for a while. They haven't won a game since March, and they have lost ten of their last 15. On the road, they have lost seven of the last nine. As you would expect, scoring goals has been a real issue, and they have only found the net twice across their last eight outings.

Nacional have won nine of their last 11, and this is something of a mismatch. Nacional beat Cerrito 3-0 back in May, and I'm expecting a similarly impressive victory here. We can use the Sportsbook's Bet Builder to back Nacional to win by two goals or more and for there to be Over 0.5 First Half Goals at a combined price of evens.