Ileana Sanchez
Dailysports's expert
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On February 9, Municipal de Braga Stadium (Braga) will host the 1/4 final match of the Taça de Portugal, in which Braga will compete with Benfica. The battle will start at 21:30 CET.
Braga
The team has the unofficial nickname of “the Champion of the rest of Portugal”. It goes without saying that the club made progress in recent decades, but, as a rule, it follows the trio of the traditional football giants of the country. The 4th place of the previous season in the Primeira also proves the higher mentioned fact. To be frank, the team can climb to the 3rd or even to the 2nd position from time to time, or win the Taça de Portugal. Nowadays, Artur Jorge’s wards are trying to achieve the bronze medals again. At the same time, after a nice winning streak, they started February with 5 “unanswered” goals in the match with Sporting. Then, a 4-1 victory in the struggle with Famalicao rehabilitated the club.
Benfica
The team finished the previous season only in the 3rd place of the championship, lagging a lot behind its traditional competitors. The higher mentioned fact could not but react and a new mentor, Roger Schmidt, appeared in the summer. A German specialist does a lot in Lisbon. The Portuguese club reached the play-offs of the Champions League again, and, having got Brugge as an opponent there, is eager to overcome the Belgian rival. Speaking about the Primeira, the team wins the major part of the matches. The first defeat in the tournament occurred only on New Year’s Eve – by the way, that was Braga, which won the battle with a 0-3 score. After all, Enzo Fernandez left the club in the winter, but more than decent finance was received instead from Chelsea – 120 million. And to tell the truth, the Argentine player is unlikely to be irreplaceable. Still, there were other losses – Brooks, Seferovic, Tavares, but it seems that “the Eagles” are ready to cope with any task without them – strong Casa Pia was defeated with a confident 3-0 score.
The statistics of head-to-head matches
The recent rout, done by “the Archbishops”, was the second victory in a row. Moreover, they won 3 out of 4 previous head-to-head matches.
Predictions
Bookmakers consider Benfica to be the favourite of the battle. Nevertheless, current Braga is also quite combat-ready and can cause a lot of troubles to the grandee from Lisbon. We bet that the following match will result in “total: over 2.5” (odd: 1.74).
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