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Nice question, I only got a lengthy answer:

Skills you need

Mathematics: Obviously the problem is mathematical. The math itself is really easy but I think you need to understand some of it. There is no book that contains everything you need to know for Soccerbetting (to my knowledge). A good guide to it, including many other games than Soccerbetting is The Theory of Gambling and Statistical Logic. This book is a little to much but if you go through it, you should have a deeper understanding. This will cover only the math of Gambling not of the modelling itself.

Building the actual Model: This is a machine learning problem (you could use analytical math like Poisson Distribution but I don't think that will get you far). I think if you have no skills this part is the hardest, since you need a lot of intuition for math (in my opinion). I suggest you try some examples from scikit-learn in python. Unfortunately, I never read a good book about this topic.

Betting Markets: Being successful in betting takes a little more than math an programming, you have to know where to place your bets, why betting is Europe is not a good idea etc. For this I would suggest to not hang out on this subreddit, most people get a lot of stuff wrong. Here I would suggest the first two chapters of How to Find a Black Cat in a Coal Cellar.

Programming: This part is also fairly easy. I suggest you use python, it contains everything you need in handy packages that are easy to use. I would not recommend to use Excel since at some point you will outgrow it and restart from the beginning. This part takes some work but not some actual skills.

Automation: Since most of us have a steady job we don't have time to deal with this stuff everyday. My model for example runs on a raspberry Pi and sends me a mail what I should bet on. I only check the logs on the weekend. You have to write a lot of scrapers. This part took the longest. I suggest to use Linux (I guess you have to I you don't want to pay for a sever). Here I suggest Bash and or C++.

Psychology: You will fall for all fallacies in the book, so I think knowing them makes you avoid certain things, here I can suggest The Science, Psychology & Philosophy of Gambling

The most important: Endurance, Balls and Self-Honesty: It takes a lot of set-backs and tears to get this fully working. At the beginning your model won't work and simply loose. You will think that this was a stupid idea and think about giving up. The model or the scraper breaks just as you are on vacation with your girlfriend and you spend the entire day in the hotel room fixing this thing (this actually happened to me). This needs a lot of endurance. I for example had some bad bugs in my model that cost me a little money and you really start to doubt yourself, so you need the balls to pull this through. Self Honesty is important such that you don't bullshit yourself. In that sense, that you always try to tell yourself that your model is working (at the beginning it doesn't) and you need the honesty to tell yourself that it is not fine, this is not just bad luck and needs additional work. For this part, a partner can really help. Just talking about it really makes you understand more and you can bullshit yourself but hopefully not your partner.

All in all I think having a good analytical thinking in combination with some honesty and healthy self-doubt will allow you to learn everything you need.

Skills I have:

As an example I can tell you which skills I have: I got a Masters-Degree in Engineering and am currently finishing my PhD in Theoretical Physics. So modelling stuff and math is kind of my job. I had to learn to program during my studies. I didn't know anything about gambling when I started out and did not read any books. I just try to think about it a lot and derive the math myself, that helped enormously.

Edit: I think it is also important to know what you don't need: A passion for football. I don't know shit about football and never watch it (only sometimes my local team). I even think knowing about football is a disadvantage since you open up to certain fallacies like "I know better than my model".

I read the book The Numbers Game: Why Everything You Know About Soccer Is Wrong by Chris Anderson. Its not specifically about betting but it covers alot of great analysis about football that can totally apply to betting. It was a great read, definitely changed the way I understand the game and what kind of bets I was making.

Amazon Link: https://www.amazon.ca/Numbers-Game-Everything-About-Soccer/dp/0143124560/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1465081904&sr=8-1&keywords=the+numbers+game

I don't think this is correct. If you take for example the Favourite-longshot-bias;

• There is a paper from 2003 describing it in great detail: http://faculty.citadel.edu/sobel/All%20Pubs%20PDF/Racetrack%20Betting.pdf
  
• Yet it is still absolutely measurable in 2013 when Joseph Buchdahl wrote about it in https://www.amazon.de/How-Find-Black-Coal-Cellar/dp/1843440679
  
• If you look into current data you will see that it is still there.
  
  All of this comes down to the efficient market hypothesis: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Efficient-market_hypothesis
  
  One could argue that the betting market is Semi-strong-form efficiency or Weak-form efficiency but it certainly is not strong-form efficient. This would imply that:
  > "investors cannot consistently earn excess returns over a long period of time".
  
  So betting would be pointless
  
  Edit: This exploits are there but most people have a to low payroll to cash in on them
  
  Edit2: Paper about testing the efficient market hypothesis for sports betting https://www.jstor.org/stable/1832139 (sadly its with data from 1983)
  
  Edit3: Sry the paper is behind academic paywall, but they describe their findings in "The Economics of the National Football League: The State of the Art" on page 229 you can find that on google books if anyone is interested.

In my opinion, those 2 books are among the best.
http://www.amazon.com/Soccer-iQ-2-Book-Series/dp/B00XJ08GW2?ie=UTF8&redirect=true&ref_=series_rw_dp_sw

Yeah I was having problems

Sure book is here Predict Football Matches: Using Spreadsheet Models to Become a Winning Sports Bettor (Premier League Edition) https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B00DHX0QG0/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_tai_uVqVBb4PB9310

Emphasise on American sports, but lots of good basic info everyone should know.

https://www.amazon.ca/Sharp-Sports-Betting-Stanford-Wong/dp/0935926240

https://www.amazon.ca/gp/aw/d/0935926305/ref=pd_aw_fbt_14_img_2/185-6452705-3156847?ie=UTF8&psc=1&refRID=M8XVPFKB25H5JBQNCHG5