Coupe de la Ligue: Round 2

Last eight seasons have seen this round (47 matches total ....just five played one year) produce 19 home wins (40.4%), 11 draws (23.4%) and 17 (36.2%)away victories, with 48.93 % going "over". Make up is almost all Ligue 2 (11 of the 12 teams taking part this evening) and that is the obvious comparison, last two seasons in the second tier have seen 41% home wins, 31% draws and 28% aways , so the same number of homes, but more away wins and fewer draws and that is what we should expect, with teams always rotating and tending to prioritise their league games.  "Overs" are about 6-7 % more likely in these cup games over this period, however, those are a little skewed by there being only two in the each of the last two seasons (six games is a small sample) and prior to that, goals were flowing in R2 and you only have to watch a couple of these fixtures to realise that they are always far more likely than for a league fixture and games much more open. So, we can look out for more of an away and goal bias.

There is one thing that might make a difference to these long term numbers and that is, starting last season, prize money has been significantly increased (up 87%) and a team passing this round will receive a minimum 348k € , that might not make a huge difference to Lorient/Lens who have 2 of the 3 biggest budgets in L2, Lens' is bigger than that of nine Ligue 1 teams ! But to Clermont and Orleans who have two of the three smallest , it is a not insignificant sum and something I had not overly considered before.

Good Luck.