HullShaker's Tips: Survival of The Strongest

I’VE been following South/Central American football for nearly 10 years now and like most things in life you develop favourites over time.

I like the odd Brasilian, occasional Costa Rican and have a soft spot for the Chilean and Paraguayan leagues but if I had to choose just one to follow it would be the Bolivian Primera.

I just love it – the rollercoaster games, the scorelines, the sheer altitude of grounds, the rivalries … even the names of the teams roll off the tongue!

A central theme to the Bolivian top flight over the years is the La Paz derby which sees The Strongest take on their arch nemesis Bolivar way up in the Andes. Safe to say there’s no love lost and tonight sees the two Bolivian titans clash once again.

The Strongest v Bolivar (10.15pm)

These games are so hard to call and alas backing red cards and penalties are sadly missing from any bookie outside of the local Bolivian Pazzy Power branch.

H2Hs give no consistent betting patterns – they are usually relatively low-scoring and close affairs, historically btts/overs was the go-to call but of late (the last 5 in fact) very few have seen both sides netting.

I put this down to the fact up until recently both sides were outclassing every side except themselves. The last 12 months however has seen a bit of a power shift with teams like Wilstermann and more recently Royal Pari coming out of left field to prise open the title race.

As a result The Strongest failed to impress in the Apertura stage and took a few dents to their pride and now it seems Bolivar are struggling in the Clausara stage as they sit a relatively poor 7th of 14 and a gap of 8 points behind their rivals.

Current form is everything and The Strongest have both form and momentum on their side – the 1-0 away defeat to up and coming Pari didn’t come as a huge shock to me and aside from this they have looked more like The Strongest of old with 6 hefty back-to-back wins.

Victory over the old enemy will see them leapfrog Pari back into top spot and more importantly secure La Paz bragging rights until the next time these two giants meet.

Sticking my neck out here and taking on two non-goals based selections – Unibet offering the best prices and can see the main pick shortening over the course of the day.