Thursday Football Tips: Eye the jackpot with 48/1 double

Sao Paulo v Palmeiras
Thursday 23 June, 23:59
Live on OneFootball

This is the fourth props column of the week and the third to feature a Brazilian derby.

In fact, this game is a repeat of the one which made up Monday's column, Palmeiras winning 2-1 on that occasion in Serie A thanks to two injury-time goals.

Three days on and the two rivals from Brazil's biggest city clash again in the Copa do Brasil, this being the first leg of a last-16 tie.

It is a fixture which has seen plenty of cards of late and it's worth noting that four of the last nine meetings have featured a red card - the chance of another is rated 21/10 by the market.

However, referee Raphael Claus isn't as card crazy as some of his compatriots (an average of just over four per game is low by Brazilian standards) and with over 5.5 cards odds-on, I'm not sure there's a great deal of value to be had there, especially given only four were shown on Monday night.

Instead I'm going to use what we saw in that contest to take a punt at a massive price.

Sao Paulo's Rodrigo Nestor and Palmeiras' Gustavo Scarpa managed 11 shots between them, both men adopting a shoot-on-sight policy. The pair are also more-than-useful on free kicks around the box.

With both men liking to push on from midfield roles, Nestor has four goals in his last 16 starts, while Scarpa - recently linked with Premier League new boys Nottingham Forest - has seven in his last 16 appearances.

Essentially I'm not sure odds of close to 48/1 about the pair finding the net correctly reflect the chance of it happening and a Bet Builder looks worth a try. The singles are clearly an option too - Nestor at 9/1 and Scarpa at 4s.

Clearly there's the possibility of this being a cagey first leg - and that is probably why we're getting such a big price - but it's worth pointing out that the last three meetings of these sides have produced goal tallies of 3-4-4.

An obvious word of warning though: you can never really be sure who's going to start in such a game so checking the team news will be worthwhile.

You can always cashout and get your stake back should one (or both) of the players involved start on the bench.

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