Wednesday Football Tips: Expect a Fla-Flu card carnival in Rio

Flamengo v Fluminense
Wednesday 30 March, 01:40 Thu (BST)

If you like a card bet, there's nothing like a South American derby to get the juices flowing and that's what we've got on Wednesday night with Rio de Janeiro's giants going head to head in the first leg of the Carioca (state championship) final.

These two met earlier in the competition in a game which produced 10 yellow cards and two reds. While that's pretty extreme, this is a fixture with a long history of poor discipline - 10 of the last 19 have seen 70+ booking points.

Both teams to see red again here is a 14/1 chance - that's got potential if some bad blood has spilt over from last month's clash, which Fluminense won 1-0.

However, that is the only time it's occurred in more than 20 games between the pair so I'm instead heading to a bet which has landed much more often.

You can get 5/2 about Fluminense receiving over 4.5 cards and that looks decent given the data.

It has occurred in eight of the last 21 derbies, numbers which suggest it should be a 13/8 shot.

Of course, other factors come into play to determine the price, the biggest one being the referee, Wagner do Nascimento Magalhaes.

Admittedly he's been fairly lenient in the handful of games he's had so far this season, although he did show Fluminense three cards when their paths crossed last month.

What is more encouraging is his previous handling of Fla-Flu games.

In previous encounters he's produced card tallies of 8-5-6-8 and that's enough for me to take a punt on another card-fuelled contest here, especially with so much at stake.

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