I'd recommend not betting on football full stop. It's one of the more unpredictable sports, making it hard to reliably bet on. It's also one where the odds for the favourites means even if you only ever bet on big favourites to win you'll gain very little money and likely lose it all and then some as soon as an upset happens.

In my experience tennis is a good sport to bet on. When I was into sports betting I made a fair bit of money from tennis. It's much easier to identify the bets that will likely be profitable.

Thanks

YESSS LET'S GO SENEGAL

Verdict for Group A:

Three teams that were roughly equally good played for the two spots in the round of 16. The Netherlands had the ounce of luck to get four points against their competitors, so taking care of the underdog today was merely a formality. Between Ecuador and Senegal, the African team wanted it more, so no complaints here.

None of the teams in group A had the potential to go beyond the quarter finals and even that is a long shot already, although the second place team from group B won't be all that either. Group A was one of the least attractive groups of the draw.

Qatar looked hardly ever competitive; a short stretch in one half against Senegal was as good as it got for them. Otherwise they looked so outclassed that they were lucky to play in a group without any truly strong team. With 0 points and 1:7 goals they likely finished above most expectations. I've heard they won the Asia Cup in 2019, so I can only assume that a lot of money went around, because otherwise it's a piss poor image for the quality of Asian football.

15 goals scored for an average of 2.5 goals per game. Acceptable.

...

Performance per continent:

Here's a summary of how many teams of each confederation have advanced to the round of 16, only accounting for already completed groups. Australia is a member of the Asian federation.

Africa: 1/1 - 100%
Asia: 0/1 - 0%
Europe: 1/1 - 100%
North America: N/A
South America: 0/1 - 0%

I really do get sick of my fellow England fans sometimes (generally those I’ve seen on other websites). From their tine, you’d think Southgate is the only England manager to fail to win a tournament and that England have a divine right to win the trophy and should do so almost automatically.
I get Southgate isn’t perfect but his record is the better than any England manager bar Alf Ramsay. These fans typically are the same ones who derided the Nations League as a tournament, referring to the games as friendlies and now act like the persisting issues from that tournament are new things. Also that Southgate should have been sacked after the Euros. I mean, seriously?

Also a fair amount of lack of awareness of who would replace Southgate should he go. The general favourites are Eddie Howe and Graham Potter, neither of which would be released by their current clubs, a reality they seem in denial of. Other suggest Mauricio Pochettino, who whilst a great coach I think is very unlikely to take the England job as well (gut instinct I’ll admit).

Edit: Yet more of it tonight. Ok, the USA game wasn’t great but they are being more than good enough tonight but more comments of ‘shocking’, ‘no intensity or creativity’. Some fans really need to get a grip. Like there was a huge clamour from fans to replace Mount with Foden. Within twenty minutes there was clamour for Foden to be subbed off for Mount :/

Verdict for Group B:

England were the clear favorites and they lived up to it with the exception of their boring 0-0 vs. the USA. We have yet to see how much the tournament tree will favor them this around - both the WC 2018 and Euro 2020 provided a very favorable path for them - but they do seem good enough to reach the quarter finals when compared against the rest of what we've seen at this WC.

The USA advanced in a deserved manner, because Iran failed to show anything of note in the entire first half and then eventually it is too late to get the goal you need. Nevertheless, Iran showed solid play across all three games, even though they got thrashed by England which made it look worse than it really was. The big disappointment of group B was Wales who only scored with a penalty kick and looked more like Qatar than anything else.

16 goals scored, albeit with an uneven spread; England vs. Iran alone accounted for half of them. Acceptable.

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Performance per continent:

With 16 of 32 teams advancing to the next round, the logical goal is 50% for everyone to justify one's own number of participants in the tournament. But due to the low number of participants from everyone save Europe, it would be good enough for Africa to reach 40% (2 of 5 teams). Asia, North America and South America all have an even number of participants, so 50% as the target remains fair.

Africa: 1/1 - 100%
Asia: 0/2 - 0%
Europe: 2/3 - 67%
North America: 1/1 - 100%
South America: 0/1 - 0%

Should England win versus Senegal, they’d play the winner of the game between Group D winners (likely France) and the Group C runner-up. That latter match might bet interest depending on who makes it from Group C. As it stands, it could still be any of the 4 teams but will be interesting if its Argentina of Saudi Arabia. Argentina, for obvious reasons as its would have a more heavy-weight clash feel, but also Saudi Arabia who would feel they would be capable of pulling off another shock win similar to what they already did to Argentina. It would be an outcome I couldn’t see Poland or Mexico pulling off.

Netherlands versus USA. Still going as I predicted so far.

They did, I watched the final on TV, it's easy to remember since it was on the day I moved to Japan. Having an international final to watch is a pretty good way to spend the evening.

And yes, Asian football is still a long way behind. There have been 2 fantastic results for Saudi and Japan, but they are just one off shocks. We've already seen in the 2nd game those teams aren't good enough to get results like that (even against weaker nations) consistently.

Also, I like your verdict and summaries of each group, they're an interesting read!

So sad iran lost. I hope Japan makes it through