Santos vs Figueirense Predictions & Betting Tips, Match Previews

Santos will look upon this as a great chance to chalk up 3 points and potentially go within a point of the top of the table. Their home form is their real strong suit and it needs to hold if they are to be in with a chance of winning the league following another slip-up on the road when they lost at Cruzeiro last weekend. They are boosted by the return of 3 players from Brazil’s successful Olympic squad here though and come into this game having won an incredible 21 of their last 24 league home matches. One of the matches they didn’t win, wasn’t even played in Santos but this will be and the Estádio Urbano Caldeira is a real fortress.

If a team is going to come here and cause a shock, you’d expect them to be in considerably better shape than Figueirense. The visitors have won only 1 of their last 11 league games and have sunk into the relegation zone as a result. They sacked coach Argel Fucks earlier in the week following their 2-1 home defeat against fellow strugglers Cruzeiro last weekend. He’d only been in the job for about 6 weeks and they are yet to appoint a permanent replacement. One positive did come on Wednesday night when they beat Flamengo 4-2 in the Copa Sudamericana.

This though will be a much tougher task and you can only really see one team winning it. Santos play with so much confidence and normally a fair amount of class when they step out at their own ground. 7 of their last 8 home league games have resulted in wins by 2 goals or more and therefore backing Santos -1.5 Asian Handicap at 2.050 looks to offer great value here.