Originally published on the day of the match for For Green Fields clients
In continuing this run of Newsletters inspired by "Kneecap", we think we owe an explanation.
Rapping in Irish, turning up to the Sundance Film Festival in a graffiti-daubed RUC Land Rover and singing songs about the presence of foreign troops on Irish soil, the knee jerk response to Kneecap is to box them as West Belfast Republican youth...
... and they are.
But it is class not sectarianism that defines their politics.
Mo Chara argues that Kneecap have far more in common with working class Protestants from the Shankill Road than they do with a middle class Catholic from Dublin called Benedict.
Ireland is in the process of becoming everything that Britain is not and a United Ireland will be a progressive and provocative voice on the world stage, taking a lead on key issues like LGBTQ+ and the genocide and unfolding famine in Gaza.
And why should this matter to football industry professionals?
Take Cheltenham.
The Irish arrive every year and mug the English owners and bookies and there is nothing that the British layers can do about it - Irish trainers and jockeys are horse whisperers using centuries of tinker pagan culture to unify man and animal.
The Irish have horse fairs while the English have dinner parties and soirees.
Irish women and men are similarly well tooled when it comes to analysing the markets linked to both horseracing and football.
We evolve.
Fast.
Over the last few days, there has been a whole array of matches around Europe where a key goalkeeper has been unable to play with a junior taking their place - Skorupski at Bologna & Sommer at Inter plus Simon at Bilbao and Rajkovic at Mallorca, for example.
In the olden days when fundamentals defined match outcome rather than insider trading and corruption, a change in keeper was a near automatic filtration against a position.
But stuff happens.
Firstly, many clubs began using their second keeper in cup competitions so that there was an understanding with the defence.
Then bookmakers started pressurising agents to pull their players to fool mug punters against trading (both Bologna and Inter fall into this group).
Then teams that trade on their own events started replacing the first choice keeper to enable a better price to be available as fools traded the wrong way.
And then Tony Bloom arrived with two equal ranking goalkeepers who were known to the opposition only one hour before kick off and providing Brighton with an excellent tactical advantage.
Change of goalkeeper has evolved in the same manner as the once original and now derivative tactic of underperforming prior to a major event.
Idiot managers like Ten Hag and Rodgers still employ this outdated tactic while the canny have moved onwards and upwards.
The original reasoning behind underperforming was to keep players fresh, delay usage of PESs, 'fool' the bookies into offering a better price and persuade mug bettors that your club is unbackable.
The new templates of engagement are far more interesting analytically because we are dealing with a semi-systemic corruption in the EPL.
The gambling landscape is being entirely distorted by these psychopathic templates.
Once upon a fucking time...
Billy No Mates could go to the casino and load his money into a slot machine featuring an image of a scantily clad woman and lose his wallet and slouch off home before returning at a future date to repeat the humiliation.
Nowadays, the machine is monitored by neural networks that are analysing the psychology of Billy while he makes his choices. His gaming and breaks and staking and experience is being entirely gamed to the benefit of the organised crime group running the casino.
Similarly with online poker where Billy thinks his hand looks promising but the platform are in complete control of the pack and, if Billy is staking high, other players at the table.
This latter tactic is how Mr Bloom amassed his fortune...
... Billy was playing one of the best poker players on the planet without realising it!
One additional feature of the new battlegrounds is the manufacture of outlier realities.
If organised crime wants 18 heads followed by one tail and then another 18 heads, they can do that thing.
Statistical probability doesn't get a look in on corruption matrices.
Welcome to the brave new world.
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