Sport

Belarus Premier League – Power Rankings

It would be doing a disservice to the Belarus Premier League to suggest it is nothing more than sideshow during the Coronavirus-enforced lockdown elsewhere. In fact, it is a very good betting market.

Markets can over-react to a small sample of results. These anomalies tend to be strongest in a new market, such as the Belarus Premier League, where the majority of the bettors don’t know the teams particularly well.

The first five weeks in the Belarus Premier League have been very profitable for the thinking bettors and the next few rounds could well be even better. They have now seen enough results to create a loose opinion of the teams, albeit based on a small sample of information, which can easily lead to incorrect probability estimates. These can be exploited by those who have analyzed the teams deeply and have the confidence to resist changing their opinion too quickly.

Bate Borisov are a perfect example of a team whose recent results don’t paint a fair picture of their true ability. Bate are the biggest side in the Belarus Premier League, a team who are on the fringes of the 100 best in Europe. Bate are usually champions of the Belarus Premier League every season, even if they lost the trophy to Brest last year.

This spring the Borisov team don’t have European football as a distraction. They have strengthened their defence and have a superior overall depth in their squad compared even to their fiercest competitors, Brest and Shakhtyor Sologorsk. In my book, Bate Borisov are should be treated as marginally odds on favourites to win the Belarus Premier League title even if the bookmakers currently have them as odds against. Bate have not impressed in their first five matches but I have seen slow starts so many times across the world with supposedly sure champions. Bate will improve soon.

In terms of Colossus pools, one needs solid favorites to prevent the pools from become unreasonably difficult to the point where even winning the entire pot wouldn’t cover the very small probability of hitting. Treating Bate as a banker whilst anticipating unpredictable results elsewhere will be a smart strategy behind many profitable tickets in the next few weeks.

Even Brest and Soligorsk have slightly underperformed against market expectations so far. They are not as good as Bate but should be far better than the rest. The key indicators last season confirm that Soligorsk’s performances have been better than their point total suggests.

Dinamo Minsk are an example of how slowly I typically react to small samples of results. The betting market has turned against Dinamo Minsk and their manager, Sergey Gurenko, was sacked after five games. The paradox is that I actually raised Dinamo’s Power Rating after their two wins and three defeats, due to some advanced indicators in my mathematical model.

I cannot understand what Gurenko did wrong as as Dinamo manager. Nor will I add any extra points to Dinamo Minsk regardless of who Gurenko’s replacement turns out to be, assuming it’s not Arsene Wenger!

Yuri Puntus is the best manager in the Belarusian league. His Zhodino side have been a profitable team to bet on already and they are an organised, solid team without obvious weakness.

Likewise, we remain faithful to the other team I underlined in my previous Belarusian Football blog, Energetik Minsk. The ‘schoolboy’ team defeated their first three opponents, including Bate Borisov, before losing to a strong Zhodino and in a home game against Gorodeya when they were unlucky. The young and well-coached Energetik are perhaps not reliable but can be very good at their best.

We have been very lucky winning with Slutsk, who have won us two big pots. The marginals have been on their side but I have barely raised their power-rating even if they do find themselves at the top of the league. In fact they belong in the bottom third of the league. However, after the top five, the remaining eleven are a very tight bunch. Only Belshina have started to look clearly worse than the others.

Here are the updated Belarus Premier League power ratings from my company European Sports Betting Consultants.

 

BATE Borisov	78
Brest	74
Soligorsk	70
Dinamo Minsk	60
Zhodino	53
FK Minsk	44
Isloch	46
Mozyr	45
Vitebsk	44
Neman	44
Gorodeya	43
Energetik	41
Slutsk	40
Smolevichi	35
Rukh Brest	38
Belshina	33