After seven rounds of the MLS things are kind of quite unexpected. David Beckham’s Inter Miami is just 4th on the table, Vancouver are the league leaders while the once mighty LA Galaxy are dead last on the table having managed only 2 draws! And for this one we will be discussing the confrontation between the two yet undefeated clubs of the championship. So, on April 19 at 20:30 GMT at the TCF Bank Stadium in Minneapolis, rank #2 Columbus Crew will host #4 Inter Miami.
Wins and draws a piece
4 wins each to be exact. Columbus have played one more match than Miami so they have 3 draws while the visitors have two. 10 goals scored vs 5 conceded for the hosts, 12 and 6 respectively for Inter. With 15 and 14 points they stand quite close to league leaders Vancouver at 16. San Diego and Minnesota also have 14 points, so it’s a 5-horse race at this stage.
Last year they played 2 matches. Both at TCF Bank Stadium. One victory for each with the same score: 3-2. Otherwise, Inter counts 3 wins, Columbus 1 and 1 draw in the 5 matches before 2024. In all of those matches there were either 3 or 4 goals scored. That’s in indication of which markets to look for.
Odds for the home field advantage
While we disagree, we cannot really say that the @2.25 that awards the win for the Crew is not justified. Perhaps is too low, while the @3.30 for Miami is too high. The two sides are a lot closer that the differential would imply. In fact, the @3.25 for the draw is a much more reasonable offer with actually quite good chances of success.
Before their meeting, Columbus travel to St Louis while Miami play a match against Los Angeles FC for the CONCACAF Champions Cup. The first, being a match for the league, may change the standings at the top. The second may result in the rise of the morale of Inter and therefore a tighter clash when they fight each other on April 19.
As always, we will be paying attention to every piece of news regarding this confrontation. There’s still plenty of time for things to take a different route.
Update
While the odds have not changed (@2.22 for the home side, @3.35 for the visitors), what has, are the positions of the two teams. Crew won their away match at St Louis by 2-1, however, Inter came out of a 0-0 draw at home against Chicago. So, now, Columbus remains at 2nd, but their opponents have dropped to 5th.
Disappointing markets
We browsed through the offers for the Asian handicaps, over/under, total goals, etc… Unfortunately, those that do make some sense, are quite low (below @2.00). A spread between 2 and 3 goals pays at @2.13 which is worse than the win for Crew. The quite possible result of over 2.75 or over 3 goals, pays only at @1.93. Interestingly, the draw is priced at @3.90. The bookmakers would seem to consider it as the least possible result.
Considering that:
- Miami has one less match (7 instead of 8)
- Both sides are still undefeated
- Both sides have identical offense and defense records
we will not follow the same train of thought. For us the draw is the most likely result. And this is what we will suggest to those that will open an account at the best betting platform. We have two equal teams with the same goals for the season and plenty of matches left to make up for any mishaps. It is quite possible that they will be cautious on this one and not take risks.