In-Play Betting Tips: Belgium's magic number revealed

Belgium regularly score the second goal of their qualifying games

Michael Lintorn advises on the best in-play tactics for televised games involving England, Wales and Santos...

England v Slovenia
Saturday, 17:00
Live on ITV

Match Odds: England 1.374/11, Slovenia 12.5n/a, The Draw 5.14/1

There is a mightily compelling case for the England win to nil at 1.991/1: the Three Lions have kept five successive clean sheets and triumphed in all four outings since the World Cup without succeeding. However, they screw up at least one home tie per European Championship qualifying attempt (think Macedonia twice or Montenegro), so you might be reluctant to commit to that bet before kick-off.

You can be pretty confident about investing in-play though because all nine encounters so far in Group E were won without conceding by the first team to score, as were each of Slovenia's past dozen matches. In other words, back whichever country charges in front to win to nil.

Belgium v Wales
Sunday, 17:00
Live on Sky Sports 5

Match Odds: Belgium 1.330/100, Wales 13.012/1, The Draw 6.05/1

This is a bit of a quirky trend, but it is one that you should hopefully be able to use to your advantage in the punting sphere: one of the things that Belgium do better than the majority of rival nations is score the second goal in World Cup or European Championship qualifying fixtures.

They provided the second strike of the game in eight of their ten World Cup preliminary clashes (the only reason they failed to in one of the two others was that it finished 1-0) and have done likewise in both Euro 2016 tune-ups to date too. How do you capitalise on this? Wait until the opening goal has been scored and then back Belgium in the next goal market.

Santos v Cruzeiro
Sunday, 19:00
Live on ESPN

Match Odds: Santos 2.568/5, Cruzeiro 3.052/1, The Draw 3.3512/5

Cruzeiro are a few wins away from becoming the first club in six years to retain the Brazilian title and will hope that Santos' untimely six-match winless streak will help them edge closer. The leaders are unbeaten in five meetings between the sides, two of which took place over the last month in the cup, yet are rated 3.052/1 outsiders.

Santos' problem is that when they don't score the opener, they lose. They have gone 0-1 down six times in their previous 15 games and lost the lot, whereas the nine instances of them breaking the deadlock resulted in seven wins and two draws. The advice therefore is to back the visitors in-play if they fire first.