World Cup 2014: Armchair ratings say Germany massive value

German supporters should have a lot to cheer against France in their quarter final

In his fifth instalment in a series which aims to show the value of ratings to the armchair punter, Jack Houghton, a self-confessed know-nothing when it comes to the beautiful game, gives us the "true" odds for all the Quarter-Final matches...

With a level of smug self-satisfaction that can only be mustered by a tipster recounting his amazing prescience, I thought I'd start by telling you all how well our ratings have been doing in the World Cup so far.

African teams, despite all the supposed potential, have, as predicted, failed to deliver. Playing 17 games in this World Cup, they have collectively won three, a strike-rate barely better than they managed in South Africa four years ago, and a tidy profit to those who laid them in every match.

Although England failed, Mexico and Greece qualified from their groups, delivering more profit.

Tips in the overall winner market, Argentina and Germany continue to progress. And as identified last time, Costa Rica and Belgium both failed to win in normal time, bringing more profit still.

So for a series of blogs that have been aimed at showing how ratings can be used by any punter - even someone like me who knows very little about day-to-day footballing stories (I spent a lot of time the other night thinking how weird it was that USA's manager looked so much like Jrgen Klinsmann, before I realised it was... well, you know the rest) - to make better informed decisions about which bets represent good value, things have been going well.

With this in mind (and the smugness is now abating...) I thought it worth looking at the "true" odds for the quarter-final matches, to see if any value lurks there also.

Brazil - 1.76
Draw - 4.15
Colombia - 5.24

Germany - 1.90
Draw - 3.82
France - 4.73

Netherlands - 1.66
Draw - 4.46
Costa Rica - 5.75

Argentina - 1.94
Draw - 3.74
Belgium - 4.60

The Brazil match looks to be priced up about right, although I wouldn't put any one off backing them given the home-advantage statistics I wrote about last time, although whether bordering countries also enjoy some reflected home-advantage is beyond the scope of my analysis at the moment.

Value is to be had in all of the other matches, though. Germany, at around 2.6413/8, are massive value to beat France in normal time. Argentina, at around 2.245/4, are also a good bet: the market has consistently overvalued Belgium in this World Cup and they will do well to survive normal time. Finally, the Netherlands are too short against Costa Rica at 1.548/15 and are worth laying.