Careful on Brazil

Brazil away to Bolivia at close to even money are bound to be a very popular coupon selection on Thursday night. Of that there can be no doubt - especially when you consider that Brazil have won 11 of thier last 13, including a 5-0 thrashing of Bolivia earlier in the group. Bolivia have also lost 18 of their last 23, so it starts to sound like a pretty compelling bet.

Before you dive in head first though, we wouldn't be doing our StattoBets job if we didn't dive into the history books to provide and important and easy to miss statistic that might make you think again.

Bolivia play in La Paz. That's around 12,000ft above sea level, and it's not easy to breathe at that sort of height. History shows that Bolivia have rather a better record on home turf, which give their recent home wins against Argentina, Chile and Paraguay is pretty important.

Since 2004 Bolivia have played 74 internationals. They have won 13 (17%), drawn 16 (22%) and lost 45 (61%). But break it down my matches at home, and matches away and it's incredibly different.

30 home matches have produced:

11 Bolivia wins (37%)

8 draws (26%)

11 away wins (37%)

44 away matches have produced

2 Bolivia Wins (5%)

8 draws (18%)

34 home Wins (77%)

So while they are getting beat frequently, the vast majority of their poor record comes away from La Paz, while at home they massively over perform. It's fair to say that Bolivia probably enjoy the biggest home field advantage in any football fixture in the world, and for this reason you should think carefully before putting Brazil on your coupon this week!

#Football