Sport
Belarusian Premier League: The only game in town
Colossus Captain Jorma Vuoksenmaa gives us his views on the Belarusian Premier League, currently the only notable football league still going in the wake of Coronavirus crisis. After his Syndicates enjoyed some success in the Pick 8 pool, Jorma gives us his insights and his Belarusian Premier League power rankings.
Last weekend three of our Colossus Pick 8 Syndicates won big money in the Belarusian Premier League, which is the only European league currently defying the Coronavirus crisis. The Syndicates returned almost a 100x profit for the contributor which was a fantastic result.
Colossus have a Pick 8 rollover kicking off this Friday and the potentially large prize fund which will be up for grabs encouraged me to do some extra analysis on the Belarusian Premier League.
Something unusual that I’ve noticed is that, in Belarusian Premier League, only around 25% of the games are draws even when the scoring is low. Normally the fewer the goals, the higher the chance of the draw. Yet in this league that doesn’t appear to be the case.
There is no logical reason for this that I can see, so the phenomenon might be just a coincidence, which can easily happen in just five years worth of data.
Recently 44% of matches resulted in home wins in the Belarusian Premier League. This figure, also quite a low percentage, is slightly affected by the relatively high number of local derbies in the league. There are 4 teams from Minsk and two from Brest.
Bate Borisov are the best team in the country, despite Brest currently reigning as Belarusian Premier League champions. Bate have more depth in their squad and will point to being distracted by European matches last season as the reason that they failed to clinch the league.
With European football no distraction anymore, they are now able to concentrate on domestic games for as long as the league are able to hold out against the virus.
Bate have started the season badly. Their shock defeat at Mozyr last weekend was the key factor behind our big ColossusBets win. The result annihilated the poor, reducing the remaining units by 90% and paving the way for our Syndicates to capitalise. However, it seems highly likely that Bate will sharpen up from their two defeats and réturn to winning ways soon.
They remain the best side in the league ahead of Brest and Soligosk, who are heads and shoulders above the rest. Dinamo Minsk and Zhodino form the third tier of clubs whilst Zhodino are not a very expensively assembled side but are organised well and are also worthy of a mention.
The bottom half of the Belarusian Premier League is very evenly balanced. There are no obvious relegation favorites and even the worst of them will beat the mid-table teams. However, you should not expect too many upsets from them against the top three this year.
One side to keep an eye are Energetik Minsk. They are a well-coached young side who beat Bate Borisov in the season opener. Below I reveal my Belarusian Premier League power rankings for you.
Belarusian Premier League power rankings
BATE Borisov 80
Brest 76
Soligorsk 72
Dinamo Minsk 58
Zhodino 57
FK Minsk 49
Isloch 45
Mozyr 44
Vitebsk 43
Neman 43
Gorodeya 41
Smolevichi 40
Energetik 40
Rukh Brest 39
Slutsk 39
Belshina 38
Despite most of the world’s sport currently on hold, we’ve still got football and eSports pools available. To find all our available pools, visit our site.
