Braga vs Benfica

Braga host Benfica for this Liga Portugal round 28 battle at Estádio Municipal de Braga early Saturday morning Beijing time. The best teams, including both Braga and Benfica, in this league play beautiful, high-level football and offer great entertainment for football lovers! Portugal is a great football country and their national team, once again, qualified for the World Cup. It will be played in Qatar later this year Portugal defeated North Macedonia 2-0 in the last round of qualification. Braga’s fans are passionate about their team and the atmosphere against a strong opponent is going to be great today at the stadium. The home advantage is indeed big here! However, the differences in financial resources and also on the pitch are big and every year the same teams dominate the league. Porto are clearly the best team in this league and top the standings at the moment with 72 points. Benfica are in the 3rd place with 61 points.

Benfica have been slightly disappointing in Liga Portugal this season but have played well in the champions League. This has, however, led to serious over-valuation on the betting market! They defeated Ajax, another over-rated team, in the previous round of Champion League play offs. However, this result was highly undeserved in terms of performances on the pitch. Ajax were the better team even in the first leg in Portugal with close to 60% ball possession and much more shots on goal. They also recorded more completed passes, attacks and dangerous attacks. In the second leg Ajax were very dominant, but Benfica took an extremely unlucky 1-0 win with one shot on goal! They will face Liverpool at home next Tuesday, a huge match for them and some squad rotating is expected here.. This, of course, increases Braga’s chances. It is also possible Benfica’s players' concentration is not quite 100% here.. I expect a match with a pretty low tempo as saving energy and avoiding injuries must play a role here. Braga currently occupy the 4th place in the standings and have lost just two of their latest 10 matches. They are in fine form indeed and are under-rated here! They will face Rangers in the Europa League next week, but the match does not take place until Thursday. Braga are a smaller team by financial resources than Benfica and do not have any super stars in the team but can challenge Benfica on the pitch at home. The visitors are only marginal favorites here and the hosts with the +1 goals handicap, 1x2 handicap is a solid bet for my fans and myself here!