Robert Sykes
Dailysports's expert
Boavista
Uniao de Leiria
On July 24, Estádio do Bessa Século XXI (Porto) will host the semi-final match of the first stage of the Portuguese League Cup, in which Boavista will compete with Leiria. The battle will start at 21:15 CET.
Boavista
The team is remembered for the fact that once, in 2001, it became the champion of the country. Moreover, it repeatedly won in the cup format. Still, a number of the successes were achieved by “the Chequered ones” due to the fixed matches, which resulted in the penalty in the form of a forced relegation. It was possible to return to the Primeira, which happened pretty quickly. Still, the club did not pretend to something serious. Recently, it has even finished in the places outside the top 10 and, taking into account the previous results, the 9th place, which was taken in 2022/2023, has already become quite noticeable progress. Traditionally, the squad is noticeably updated in summer. Nevertheless, that is the most important, the backbone remained and Petit, the ex-football player who once had started his coaching career there, continues being in the position – he returned at the end of 2021 and ensured the current progress.
Leiria
The club was not bad at the beginning of the century. It was able to win in the Segunda in 1998 and reached the final of the Taça de Portugal in five years. The team lost there, but still took part in the Super cup in 2003. Then there was a victory in the UEFA Intertoto Cup, but 2007 resulted in the relegation of the team to the second division. It returned, but the following problems resulted in the bankruptcy. And the entry of Russian investors turned into the signing the contracts with a number of players from “their” regions (Lystsov, Zlobin, Rukas, Bavin, Yarmolenko, Nikolaesh) and then resulted in a failure – the team “hung” out in the third division of Portugal. Only the previous season gave an opportunity to “Os Lis” to be promoted, at least to the Segunda. It is reasonable to mention that “the Ones from the Lis river” were only in the 2nd place in its group, but then they overcame the additional rounds and, as a result, won the confrontation with another well-known project, Belenenses, in the final of the play-offs.
The statistics of head-to-head matches
The clubs “crossed” their paths only once since 2009 – that was a battle in the Taça de Portugal in 2016. Then Boavista won with a 2-0 score on the away field.
Predictions
Bookmakers argue only about how confident the hosts’ victory will be. Thus, we bet on Boavista with “a -1.5 goal handicap” (odd: 1.9).
