The World Cup is beginning to feel like a distant memory now, but wipe away a tear as it’s only three years, eleven months to the next one!
The chances are you had a flutter or two on the tournament, and hopefully you picked up a few quid along the way.
One punter who certainly enjoyed the World Cup more than most was ‘Liz’, whose £1 acca landed her an eye-watering £250,000 payout!
The huge sum was won when her six-fold accumulator hit the spot; not bad when you consider one of her legs was a 25/1 leap of faith of South Korea to beat Germany in the group stage!
Some of her selections were rather eyebrow-raising, but in football – and acca betting – you just have to accept that anything can, and invariably does, happen!
Selection 1: Spain vs Morocco – Draw
Quite how she picked this one out is anybody’s guess, but Liz came up trumps with her selection here.
The final round of Group B matches were, in essence, inconsequential, but Spain still would have liked to have beaten Morocco.
The game was well poised at 1-1 with ten to play, and she would have felt pretty good about life. However, the Moroccans weren’t finished and scored a surprise second through Youssef En-Nesyri.
The minutes and seconds ticked by, and Liz may have been tempted to screw her betslip into a ball and throw it on the fire. But up popped Iago Aspas, a unlikely saviour, with a 91st minute equaliser for the Spaniards.
Selection 2: Brazil vs Switzerland – Draw
There won’t have been many punters out there backing a draw here, but then those guys and gals aren’t walking away with a £250,000 payout from the World Cup!
And when Philippe Coutinho gave the Brazilians an early lead, the madness of the pick looked likely to be revealed.
But the Swiss rallied, found an equaliser through Steven Zuber, and hung on to claim a surprise point. Liz breather a huge sigh of relief.
Selection 3: Croatia vs Iceland – Croatia to Win
This was an in-play wager placed at 1-1 with 15 minutes to play, and not for the first time our punting hero was rescued by a last-minute goal.
Ivan Perisic was her man, bagging an injury-time winner for the Croatians which rubber-stamped their status as a tough team to beat.
As it was, Liz bagged another 11/4 winner to add to her winnings so far.
Selection 4: Sweden vs Mexico – Sweden to Win
Here was another brave call, given that at this point Mexico had won both their matches including a 1-0 triumph over reigning world champions Germany.
Sweden were poor too, but luckily for Liz they saved their best performance of the tournament, running out comfortable 3-0 winners over the Mexicans.
Selection 5: Germany vs South Korea – South Korea to Win
Here’s the real money-maker. Liz, somehow, saw value in South Korea at 25/1 to down the defending champions.
Okay, so the Germans had not performed until this point, but they couldn’t lose to the Koreans, could they?
They could: injury-time goals from Kim Young-gwon and Son Heung-min did the damage, and at this point Liz must have thought her time was nigh.
Selection 6: France to Win the World Cup
After a pretty turgid group phase, punting France to win the whole thing was rather brave.
But Les Bleus improved dramatically in the knockout stage, defeating Argentina, Uruguay and Belgium on route to the final.
There, they ran into a punch-drunk Croatia, who had gone through the ringer with three extra time victories in their run to the final. The Eastern Europeans didn’t really stand a chance, and despite a resilient show the fresh French legs had a clear advantage.
Their 4-2 victory created history for them and landed Liz’s a whopping payday!