Braga VS Malmö

Braga welcome visitors from Sweden for this UEFA Europa League round 6 battle at Estádio Municipal de Braga early Friday morning Beijing time. The hosts are a Portuguese team and Malmö come from Sweden. This is the last round and the situation is very clear here: Only Braga have something to play for in terms of qualifying for the 1/16-finals. Of course, there is prize many available for draws and wins though. The hosts have taken seven points so far and occupy the 3rd place – two points behind German Union Berlin. Braga's goal difference is 7:6.They have to win this much to keep their hopes of toppling Union Berlin alive and I think they will be very aggressive here and dominate the match right from the kickoff and leave nothing to chance. We would need them to win by at least two goals' difference and the chance for this is close to 70%! Malmö, on the other hand, have been very bad so far and have not managed to take any points. Their are clearly low in confidence at the moment. They a have an abysmal score difference – 2:9 in this group. They are clearly not good enough for this level. Last year they, with a lot of luck though, made it to the Champions League group stage but they have been much worse this season and the bookies still respect them too much. Moreover, they have been extremely disappointing in the Swedish Allsvenskan and are currently in the 7th place with just 45 points. Häcken, who top the standings, have grabbed 63 points so far. Malmö did beat a pretty weak team, Varberg, in their most recent match 5-2 away from home though but the much was much more balances than the final score suggests. The hosts even recorded more scoring attempts – 14:11.

We must realize that the Portuguese Liga Portugal is of much better level than Allsvenskan. Braga have done very well so far and are in the second place with an awesome score difference of 27:10. They have taken more points than much bigger clubs Porto and Sporting CP who have done very well on the Champions League in recent years. Porto even just won their group beating many tough clubs. Braga beat Malmö comfortably in the first round in Sweden 2-0. The difference in all areas of the game become very clear in this match. Especially offensively Braga's players were a lot better – more skilled and creative. Malmö only recorded two shots on Braga's goal whilst Braga recorded six and also had 15 goal attempts. Furthermore, Malmö did not convince me in their most recent match in this group losing 0-2 at home to Royal Uninon SG, a Belgian team. Braga on the other hand, lost in Germany in round 5 but were not bad at all and even recorded 59% ball possession. Let's not forget that Union Berlin have been very good this season and currently top the Bundesliga standings! Lastly I want to mentioned that Malmö have many absentees and questionable players here which hurts their chances..