I’ve been trading football recently and I must admit that I was surprised by the negative results in South America, mainly Brazil. I had a noticeable decline in results which I decided to analyze.

When you trade as I do, basing your knowledge on statistics and the probability of the events in general, you do not limit your market entries. My aim is to trade as much as possible as the probability is on my side. However, this time alarm bell was raised.

What you have in mind when you think about Brazilian football?

Everyone’s answer is probably obvious. They have the best footballers in the world, virtuosos, great technical skills, joy of play, football is religion, etc.

You could say that the love of football is connected with samba and football rallies towards the opponent’s goal – with the love of dance performances at carnival parades.

If you were to name famous Brazilian footballers you would say without hesitation: Pele, Romario, Ronaldo, Ronaldinho, and nowadays Neymar.

I did a quick research to check what is wrong. Have a look at the data below on the 3 main Brazilian leagues.

Can you imagine that the leagues are low scoring games, with an average for 2.5+ goals per match is below 50%?

What we can do about it?

In my trading approach, I expect to have goal or goals in the second half.

In the above circumstances, I have two options:
1) avoid Brazilian leagues
2) change the approach and trade against the goals

As I like their joy of play and samba I will only adjust my trading rules so I can dance with them.