Sports Desk

The Open Championship
Padraig Harrington should always be considered a real contender for the Open Championship. His relationship with the event sums up the difference between players that have won a major and those who haven’t. In 2007, Harrington was jittery and pensive with the finish line in sight, but fast forward 12 months and it was a supremely serene and decisive Harrington that defended the Claret Jug. Without the baggage that comes with such unflattering labels, he was able to play his natural aggressive game and take a comfortable victory. It was a trick he repeated when piping Sergio Garcia to the USPGA later that year.

Harrington’s bid to win a third Open in succession will be a main theme at Turnberry and regardless of his form prior to the event, it’s always worth keeping an eye on the Irishman. He offers little value in the pre-event betting, but should he post a couple of respectable, if unspectacular, scores and make the cut, the benefits of his psychological freedom will be seen. If he doesn’t make the cut, at least you haven’t backed him, so it’s no loss.

Harrington will never be the type of player to go wire-to-wire and blow the field away. He is more a player who will chip away and get into striking distance when it matters. It’s essentially the formula that has landed him his three majors, when he drifted out to big prices after flying under the radar for the first couple of rounds. Although it may seem he has too much to do, other contenders will become anxious over the closing holes, while Harrington will have little to worry him. There may be other players in better form, but with live betting, Harrington is always one to keep in mind.

Champions League/Europa League
The dust has barely settled, and the shadows the Manchester United players chased have barely vanished, but a road that, for two teams, will end at the Santiago Bernabau in May of next year begins in July this year.

Europe’s elite will join this road later in the year, but the Champions League and Europa League qualifiers are a breeding ground for emerging leagues and, accordingly, minor shocks. Rangers were denied access to the cash cow of the group stages when they were beaten by FBK Kaunas of Lithuania last season, and Everton’s taste of the Champions League was limited to the preliminaries when they were unfortunate enough to be drawn against Villarreal in 2005.

There is opportunity to be had in the qualifiers. At the time of writing, the draws have yet to be made, but there are a few things to look out for when assessing the potential for an upset. The calendar is the most obvious.

To minds linked to the fortunes of the major European leagues, July suggests leisurely pre-season friendlies before the cut and thrust begins in August, but for a lot of European leagues, the season is at an advanced stage and teams have vast amounts of competitive action under their belts. The value of this will be seen when facing technically superior teams that lack a battle-hardened edge.

Another thing to look out for is recognizable names that may enjoy an exalted status in our minds. To put an illustrative title on it, let’s call it Paris Saint Germain Syndrome. PSG enjoyed a mildly successful period in the early to mid-1990s. They did reasonably well in Europe and had some genuinely top class players at the club.

Since then, they have achieved little, but our fond recollections of those triumphant days may color our visions of their performance against unknown, unfashionable yet perfectly capable opponents. European football is littered with this type of club.

One final point to note is that odds compliers have difficulty when assessing the relative strengths of leagues. For example, are the fifth best team in Portugal better than the Moldovan champions? Maybe they are, but the differences in class may not be as vast as you might think. It may not come to mind as one lucky captain hoists the trophy into the Madrid evening air, but European success doesn’t always need to happen in May.