Braga vs Sporting Lisbon Predictions

• Ten of the last 14 Sporting Braga games have featured two goals or fewer.
• Nine of the last 11 Sporting Lisbon away games have featured two goals or fewer.
• 65 % of Sporting Lisbon’s away games last season featured fewer than three goals.
• Only one of the last five meetings between these sides has featured more then two strikes.

Minho mean enough to keep scoring down

Carlos Carvahal’s Braga are a solid unit that are rarely involved in high-scoring games – in stark contrast to Ruben Amorim’s Sporting who can destroy teams on their day.

So it will be interesting to see if the Minho defence (the joint second-best at home in Portugal’s top-flight last season) holds out against Sporting’s attack (third best away in 2020-21).

We feel this could be a tight, tactical encounter for the most part with the game opening up once – or if – the first goal goes the visitors’ way.

These two sides met at the end of July in the Portuguese Super Cup with champions Sporting Lisbon coming from behind to beat cup holders Sporting Braga 2-1 in Aveiro.

But Braga were missing three players through suspension for that game that are crucial to their functionality and should be much tougher to overcome on home turf too.

History also suggests we should expect few goals when these meet with only one of the last five meetings featuring more then two strikes.

Sporting’s defensive capability shouldn’t be underestimated either – they did concede only 20 league goals last season.

There have been less than 2.5 goals in ten of the last 14 Minho matches and – so we are happy with the odds on offer for another game to feature less than three here.

A draw is long overdue between these sides so we are taking 1-1 as the correct score prediction.

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