When you’re betting on football matches, there are a number of markets that only open up to you if you look at the In-Play odds. One of these bet types is the Next Team to Score wager, which, like the Next Player to Score market, is exactly what it sounds like. In essence, you’re placing a bet on which of the two teams playing in the game will score next or, if you don’t think there will be another goal, no goal being scored.
The reason why this is a bet type that is only available In-Play is reasonably self-explanatory. One thing that you should bear in mind is that different betting sites will call it by different names, but it remains quite an obvious thing that you’re betting on.
What the Bet Looks Like
During the 2023-2024 season, there was a match in the Egyptian Premier division that saw Ceramic Cleopatra taking on Al Ittihad of Egypt. There were two reasonably early goals, so that by the 39th minute the match stood finely poised at 1-1. This meant that the In-Play market could open up to ask which side would be the Next Team to Score, which in the case of the bookmaker we were looking at was displayed as ‘Team to Score the Third Goal’. Although what it was called was different, you were still betting on the same thing. For that particular market in the game we were looking at, the odds were as follows:
- Ceramica Cleopatra – 10/11
- Al Ittihad of Egypt – 12/5
- No Goals – 12/5
As you can imagine, the odds shifted and changed as the game was on-going, with the bookmaker changing what they were offering at any given moment depending on the game state. The longer the game went on, the lower the odds on their being No Goals became, with time running out for either side to score.
What to Think About
If you’re going to bet In-Play then it is always best to only do so on a match that you’re actually watching. The temptation will always be there to place a bet on a market as soon as you begin looking at it, but in a lot of cases you will simply be throwing your money away if you don’t actually know much about the game that you’re placing a wager on. If you’re not watching, you will have no idea about the game state or how either team is playing, so you won’t know which team is more likely to score or whether there has been a defensive shift of both sides in order to be as closed-off to conceding a goal as it’s possible to get.
If you are watching the game then there will be plenty of information available to you that you can look at in order to get a sense of which way the match is going to go. If one side is peppering the goal of the other with shots and the defensive team is having to put in a shift of last-ditch defending, it would not necessarily be wise to bet against the attacking team. That being said, if the defensive team has had a couple of opportunities to hit the attacking team on the break and has come close to scoring, you wouldn’t be too misplaced to have a punt on them if you think the odds are favourable to do so.
Do Your Research
As with any bet you place, the best thing that you can possibly do is some research. Nowadays, especially if you’re betting on one of the big games from the likes of the Premier League or the Champions League, there is a wealth of information available regarding how the two teams concerned tend to do depending on the game state. You might be able to learn that one team always seems to do well when they are a goal behind, for example, or that the other team tends to score more often when the game is level. You can also look to see which players are the most likely to score and see whether they’re playing.
Those of us who grew up watching Manchester United in the 1990s will remember all too well the ability of Alex Ferguson’s side to score when it looked like they were the most likely to concede. That can sometimes feel like the sort of thing that is built into a football club, so a bet on United to Score the Next Goal when 1-0 down or soaking up pressure might make sense. There is plenty of information available as to whether that is actually true or just feels true, so make sure to look into it before you place a bet based on your gut instinct and then lose your money as a result.