Preseason betting tips
Considering Stoke City's preseasons matches from last year's preseason there is a tendency, which shows that favorites on paper do not always win. Stoke draw against Burton. Bookmakers paid 27/10 (3.70) for this result. West Ham United traveled to Australia and New Zealand, where they lost all two matches. They lost to Sydney FC what was hard to predict. Even bookmakers did not believed that the Australian side would win, because they paid for it 47/10 (5.70). West Ham United made even bigger upset loosing against Wellington Phoenix from New Zealand, where bookmakers paid 67/10 (7.70) for the home side to win.
Most of the times English Premier League teams win their matches with American, Asian or Australian opposition, but very often these are not convincing victories. For example, Aston Villa last year won with Houston Dynamo by only one goal. The Villans made a couple of upsets in last year's preseason losing to FC Groningen and Chesterfield, where in this case for Chesterfield's win bookmakers paid 7/2 (4.50). On the other hand, Swansea lost against Minnesota United. Swansea was the obvious favorites in that match. Bookmakers paid 11/20 (1.55) for Swansea's win, and 41/10 (5.10) for Minnesota to win. Not only English clubs struggle against potential underdogs. Bayern Munich lost last year to MLS All Star team. Almost nobody expected that the team composed from the best Major League Soccer players will win. Even the bookmakers paid 28/5 (6.60) for MLS All Star's win.
These examples show that upsets happen in regular season matches as well as in the ones played during the preseason. There are many factors that might have an impact on the result. In order to select the possible upsets it is important to analize the results from the previous preseason matches. They might give an overall idea on how the selected team is involved in these matches. It is also important to follow the lineups, because managers often rotate the players in order to check their usefulness for the squad. It is often good to look for good odds on the underdogs, because they happen every year.