Op I have never believed that a particular team is certain to lose a match even when their key players are not among the first eleven players .
Yes, it's true that no team is ever certain to lose s particular match, but with past record, one is likely to have a clue which team likely to perform best.
I have once placed bet for the sake of love and it nearly landed me to a big problem but it is based on correct score and love for individual player but going so far to stake a team for the sake of love I have never tried that. And I will not try it because football is meant to be two sided and any team can win irrespective of how small they are because i did not believe in small team .
Correct scores are mostly one of the hardest kind of games to bet one, as the probability of the the outcome of the game to go as predicted always 0.1%. which is why I personally do love betting with either Over, Under or Draw, as there is a high chance of you winning with either Over or Under, than correct scores. However, when it comes to the topic of discussion, I will say that one of the qualities of a good gambler is supposed to have been his/her ability to distinguish/separate himself from club loyalty and profit maximization, of which if your club is said to be playing a match and you are very sure they are likely to lose the game, it better you bet on the side with the winning potential or skip the game.