Santa Cruz vs Chapecoense Predictions & Betting Tips, Match Previews

Santa Cruz have looked like a side destined for the drop ever since their early season bubble burst with a 1-0 defeat at home to Sport Recife in early June. Including that game, they’ve lost 13 of their last 18 league games and have fallen down to 19th place and are now worryingly 7 points from safety. While they have 16 matches to try and close that deficit, on current form it looks more likely to grow than narrow and, if that happens, they could be all but doomed by the end of this month.

They had a rare win in midweek but that was in the Copa Sudamericana against Sport and they are trying to avoid a 4th straight home defeat in the league here. America aside, most of the other struggling teams still have pretty good home records or are at least tough to beat but that’s not the case with Santa Cruz and as such Chapecoense will really fancy this.

The visitors also made progress in the Copa Sudamericana, beating Cuiaba 3-1 to progress 3-2 on aggregate and they remain in the top half of the league, having won 2 of their last 3 games, and it’s just 2 defeats in 8 for them now in Serie A. A solid mid-table finish remains their most likely outcome but if they could string a few wins together they’d be really knocking on the door of the top six.

Home advantage often counts for a lot more in Brazil than other countries and certainly the bookies take that into account when they price the markets here. That is why Santa Cruz are still pretty strong favourites at 6/5 to win this, despite being obviously the inferior side. However, when you consider they have lost 5 of their last 6 at home in the league while Chapecoense have only lost 1 of their last 4 on the road and just 5 of their last 16 away games overall in Serie A, you can make a strong case for the visitors getting a result here and backing Chapecoense 0.0 Asian Handicap at 2.350 looks to offer value.