Topic: Red Cards in Football and what they do to the odds and the outcome - page 3. (Read 636 times)

Hmm, this is an interesting opinion I agree that this team will get a lot of physical pressure on the pitch, because the other team will attack relentlessly, but on a mental level I don't see the pressure increasing as I said (it's going down imo). No one expects anything no more from this team, there is nothing to lose no more. Imagine you get a draw with one man down - great result. Imagine you get a draw being one man up - not so great.

It's basically the same when a top team plays a way inferior team in lets say a cup game. Bayern Munich playing a third division team, all the pressure is on Bayern imo. Everything but a win is super embarassing and this is huge pressure (with which the pros learnt to deal with to some extent). For the Div3 team there is no pressure at all, everyone expects them to lose; even they themselves.

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We as punters can maybe experience the same a bit too or at least I do. Lets say I place a bet on home win in a football match. As long as it is 0-0, I am rather calm, I live by the hope. The moment my team scores the 1-0 I feel some relieve, but also suddenly get more nervous - why ? Because it feels like I have this money already in my pocket, so now there is something to lose for me. This is pretty weird, but psychology. I talked to other people about this and they feel the same.

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Thanks for posting this, quite interesting. As someone who always struggled with math a bit, I find these formulas very nice


Source: http://www.stat.columbia.edu/~vecer/redcard.pdf

This was my gut feeling as well; goals are less likely most of the times after a red card was shown:

I have searched google about this, and I found this paper. I am amaze with this paper lol
this is for you,
http://www.stat.columbia.edu/~vecer/redcard.pdf

I was also watching the live results of Ligue 1 earlier and in the first 20 minutes of Lille's match the odds slowly moved towards the draw but once Rennes got a red card Lille's odds moved down from 2.2 to 1.5 right away. My experience with red cards is slightly mixed sometimes it doesn't have a big difference when the other team is given an advantage like this. It's kind of similar to a powerplay in hockey where the other team lose one player for a couple of minutes usually their opponent will score but it doesn't always happen.

I kind of agree about the moving way too much after a red card but I think it's only because there's still a lot of time left. Now i'm interested to see how the odds would look like if the red card was given in the 50-80th minute.

I'd actually think of it as the opposite. The one that got the red card would receive pressure, although they have the decision to defend till their last breath, it's still pressure to play against a full team with one less person. As for the opposing team, the pressure would still stay the same imo, it's not like their goal was changed, they still need to put out 3 points. Though I'm saying this, it's actually highly dependent on the team itself, since as you said, it's a psychological factor.

Like what @KT said, most matches that have red cards just end up with one team attacking and one defending. It becomes a rather stale game where you're just basically watching for the skill of the players and not the result anymore. The market also responds appropriately with that, we all have the statistics and records for most teams and players right now, they could basically respond to red card situations with appropriate results that shouldn't deviate that much. It's not like red card is a new thing, and there are a lot of matches for reference in the past already.

Markets are responding appropriately. I remember a time (how old I am, damn it) when the red card in football meant nothing. Since then, everything has changed a lot, the general level of the teams has leveled off, a lot of theoretical work has been done, etc. And now the state of affairs is very much closer to hockey, where the removal of one player completely changes the game and the outsider becomes the favorite (albeit for two minutes).
I should note that the matches where the red card was shown are getting pretty boring as one of the teams goes to the permanent defense. And I also noticed that oddly enough (although it is quite logical given that one team is constantly defending) many matches with red cards end in a draw.

Red cards in football have a pretty big impact on football matches - there are only two incidents, when betting markets get suspended: goals and red cards. But how big is the impact of a red card in the end ?

This was always a factor of the game, where I wanted to do some research. There are some studies available in the internet, but they are way too simplified/general in the end for my liking. They don't take into account all the different circumstances which are important to do some analysis what a red card does to the game and how it potentially changed the outcome. These circumstances are:

• What were the pre-match odds ?
• When was the red card given ?
• To which player was the red card given
• What was the score at that time ?
• Was it given to home or away side?
• How did it affect the odds ?

Now these are probably too many factors to include in an anylysis in an online forum and it would take very long to have a big enough sample size to make a general assumption. But I want to use this thread to monitor games with red cards, to get a better feel for it, where some value could be found.

I will concentrate on ENG1, ESP1, ITA1 and GER1 for a start and see if there is any pattern. This will not be retrospective, but for the upcoming season in these leagues.

An example from FRA1 yesterday:

Bordeaux - Nantes
Pre-match odds: 2.64 - 2.94 - 3.02 (avg. from oddsportal)
Red card: Bordeaux in 20th minute, score 0-0
Final result: 0-0

After the red card for Bordeaux, the ML odds for Nantes went down to around 2.0-ish I think (didn't follow closely) and having watched the game in HT2, it would have been super value to place a bet on Bordeaux 1X, since Nantes was super poor. Bordeaux was happy defending the 0-0 and did so very well, can't remember a big goal scoring opportunity for Nantes. But it's not easy on a mental level to place a bet on a team that is one man down early in the game

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We can use this thread also for some discussion about it.

In general I don't like red cards in terms of betting, not even for the team I bet against pre-match. It gives the game a completely new dynamic, which is not something I like and where I struggle a lot. Most of the times a red card is shown, I just stop following the game, if I wanted to do some live bets - just too hard for me to judge.

So what does a red card do ? It depends very much on all these circumstances above. For example, if you lead 3-0 and get a red card in 89th minute, it doesn't matter. If you are 1.2 favourite at home and get a red card in 15th minute, you still have very good chances to take the 3 points.

A lot of what happens after a red card is shown, is psychological imo. The team that is down by one man "just" needs 10% more from the remaining 10 players to compensate, but in their mind they think "uh, we are down one man, we have no chance anymore". They will choose a more defensive approach and by subbing a striker out, they can just park the bus, don't attack the opponents defenders that hard and it will be very hard for their opponent to score. There isn't more space then and you don't even need to run that much more, if you are well organized.

A red card will always kind of motivate the team that got it. It ups the team spirit imo and they are willing to go the extra mile to defend the result; it can be a good boost in team morale, if they get the job done. The team that has the strength in numbers will feel some additional pressure otoh. They are somehow expected to get the 3 points no matter what then or everyone will laugh at them.

I have no data to back it up, but I think the betting markets always overreact when a red card occurs. Since the data is so hard to process and classify, there is always a lot of uncertainty in the markets. Lets see, if we can work something out here in this regard.

What is your opinion or experience regarding red cards and the impact they have on the outcome of a football match ? Did you play football on some (semi-)professional level and one of your teammates got a red card ? What did this do to you, your team and your mental approach ?