Fire to ink Mexican legend, Blanco

Soccer Betting Lines

04/02/2007 - Chicago, IL (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Major League Soccer can shortly boast a third star signed to the new designated player contract after Englishman David Beckham with Los Angeles and American Claudio Reyna with New York.

The Chicago Fire announced that Mexican legend Cuauhtemoc Blanco will sign a DP contract with MLS on Tuesday morning.

"He is going to have a profound impact on our attack," Chicago head coach Dave Sarachan said.

Blanco will join the Fire after his contract with Mexican First Division squad Club America expires on June 30. He will count $400,000 towards the Fire's league-paid salary cap with everything over that being paid for by the team and its investor-operator, AEG., which also owns the Los Angeles Galaxy and the Houston Dynamo.

"There is, no doubt, a lot of excitement about this," Sarachan said. "There will be a real interest around the country and especially in the Chicago Area to watch him play. This is just part of us putting an exciting product out on the field."

Blanco began his career with the Aguilas in 1990 at age 17 and has also played for Necaxa and Veracruz in Mexico and Real Valladolid in Spain. Blanco's career for the Mexican National Team consisted of 95 appearances, 25 goals, and two World Cups including a tournament-record nine goals in Mexico's 1999 FIFA Confederation's Cup title run.

With the Blanco signing, MLS has three superstars in strategically placed points across the country - on the West Coast with Beckham, the East Coast with Reyna and now the Midwest with Blanco.

"It is a little ironic, but with the way it all shook out, three of the biggest markets went out and tried to make their clubs better (by filling DP slots)," Sarachan said. "We are very aggressive in making our product better. It took a lot of hard work to get it done but it happened and we are very excited about it.

"Generally with the start of the season approaching, we are pretty pumped to get 2007 underway," he added.

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Betting the NFL preseason

Rule No. 1 in the gamblers' handbook states, "Avoid sports betting on meaningless games."

When you're drowning in a sea of baseball monotony, however, things change. Even a hint of pro football betting can persuade the most disciplined bettor to break a few rules. 

The NFL preseason is around the corner, with a tempting Hall of Fame match kicking off on Sunday. But bettors must stay vigilant. Wagering on NFL exhibition games is an entirely different beast than the regular season. Most fans don't recognize the players on the field because starters get as much action in August as Warcraft fans get on Prom night.

The only certainty about the NFL this time of year is uncertainty – and yet there are some who say betting in August can be a gold mine.

“I actually feel the NFL preseason presents solid profit opportunities for sharp bettors and handicappers,” Sports Expert Steve Merril explains. “My experience has been that the sportsbooks fear the preseason, which is evident by lower limits and massive moves.”

The line moves are attributed to the limited knowledge available regarding playing-time distribution. One team’s top unit out on the field for one more series has an impact on the pointspread. Setting lines in the preseason often is a shot in the dark.

“We base the betting lines mostly on public perception,” Pete Korner, founder of the Sports Club in Las Vegas, says. “It’s very tough to predict, almost a guessing game.”

The preseason is all about figuring out who’s in and for how long.

“It becomes a race between bettors and oddsmakers to find out how long the quarterbacks are going to stay in,” Korner admits. “If a sharp gets the information first, he could exploit an early line. I’m a full believer in moving the line in the preseason if the books find out something late in the week.”

Determining what each team’s motive is can help bettors handicap. To do this you must pay close attention to the philosophies head coaches employ in exhibition play.

“You need to know what a coach is trying to accomplish,” says Covers Expert Bryan Leonard. “Sometimes a new coach will want to instill a winning attitude. Others just want to make sure their starters don’t get hurt."

So how do you distinguish who’s playing scared and who’s playing for keeps?

“Head coaches on the hot seat or new coaches trying to implement a winning attitude usually try harder to win in the preseason,” Merril says.

Cleveland Browns head coach Romeo Crennel fits this criteria. He’s entering his third season as the sideline boss and has yet to lead the Browns to more than six wins.

Cleveland is an enticing bet as well because of the unresolved quarterback situation. General manager Phil Savage sacrificed the Browns’ first-round pick in next year’s draft for Brady Quinn, but the former Notre Dame quarterback hasn’t signed or reported to training camp yet.

Charlie Frye and Derek Anderson split time at QB last season and it looks like either player (or even Quinn) could be the opening-day starter.

“If a team has quarterback depth and the pecking order hasn’t been decided, it’s a big advantage,” Leonard says.

Even in the third week of the preseason when starters generally play the most, the final outcome of the game is in the hands of fringe players. A team's talent, all the way down to the last man on the roster, is something to consider.

The New England Patriots have long been considered one of the deeper teams in the NFL and coach Bill Belichick has said in the past he’s unafraid of stars getting hurt in games with nothing on the line. He shocked his colleagues in 2003 by playing some of his starters on special teams in the preseason.

“We want to have the team ready to play a tough, physical game and preparation has to go into that and I imagine a certain amount of injuries go with it,” Belichick told the Providence Journal in August 2003.

Bettors can only hope to find more teams that share the Pats' business-like approach to the preseason (New England is 17-9-3 against the spread since 2000) and take advantage of teams who detest the exhibition schedule.

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