World Cup 2014 11am Bulletin: Return of the supersub

Olivier Giroud is likely to be benched by France against Germany

With no World Cup action until Friday, this is an ideal time to pick out betting trends from the round-of-16...

The penultimate Thursday of World Cup 2014 is very much calm before the storm, a day of inactivity before Friday's potentially glorious quarter-final double header of France v Germany and Brazil v Colombia.

Rather than focus specifically on any of those matches, let's reflect on the recurring patterns of the eight knockout ties to have passed, in an attempt to map out a few paths to last-eight profit...

Everything is evening out
The "Odd or Even" market asks if the total number of goals scored in a game will be odd or even, with zero counting as even. Though Germany and Belgium won 2-1 after extra time and Argentina 1-0, those contests were all 0-0 on 90, contributing to a seven-out-of-eight even domination of the round-of-16. Despite that, you can find 1.981/1 on even in the Netherlands v Costa Rica clash.

The half-time double zero
The final six round-of-16 encounters were all goalless at the interval, allowing spectators to appreciate that it wasn't just the group-stage goal boom that has made this tournament a delight. Brazil and Colombia were involved in the two exceptions, so swerve them, but 2.526/4 on Argentina and Belgium still being scoreless at half time appeals.

Impact off the bench
There were five substitutes on the scoresheet in the first batch of knockout fixtures - Klaas-Jan Huntelaar, Andre Schurrle, Abdelmoumene Djabou, Romelu Lukaku and Julian Green - to help set a record for the most goals off the bench at a World Cup (29). Likely sideline-starters with game-changing-cameo potential include the probable casualty of Antoine Griezmann's push for a France starting place, Olivier Giroud, who is 7.413/2 to net last against Germany.