Wednesday Football Tips: Back a Copa card-fest

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Piero Maza: Averaging more than seven cards per game in this season's Copa Sudamericana

"The last five of those games have seen 41 cards with both teams receiving over 2.5 cards on each occasion."

Our football props column is keeping things simple on Wednesday and backing both teams for cards in the night's sole Copa Sudamericana quarter-final...

Sao Paulo v Ceara
Wednesday 3 August, 23:15

We're going to keep things simple on Wednesday night and just focus on team cards in this Copa Sudamericana quarter-finals.

These two are Brazilian rivals who are currently separated by just two points in their domestic league.

Recent history between them also suggests this will be a tight, competitive game - the last six meetings have all been drawn, the most recent seeing the sides share four goals in Sao Paulo in May.

The last five of those games have seen 41 cards with both teams receiving over 2.5 cards on each occasion.

That's no great surprise when you consider that they are the two most-carded teams in Serie A in 2022.

A sixth occurrence is offered at 23/20 which looks perfectly fair, particularly given the referee appointment.

Chilean Piero Maza has produced 42 yellows and one red in six matches in this competition so far this season - an average of more than seven.

While his average in other competitions isn't as high, he's still showing plenty - 21 in four Copa Libertadores games, for example - and Maza looks likely to help get this bet over the line.

The price might not be the biggest in the world but getting odds against about both teams seeing over 2.5 cards here, via the Bet Builder option, looks good business.

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Recommended bets

Back both teams over 2.5 cards @ 2.166/5

Column P/L Summer 2022

Staked: 48pts
Returned: 63.55pts
P/L: +15.55pts

Andy Schooler

Andy Schooler has been writing about sport for more than 20 years.

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