Sheriff Tiraspol vs Braga Predictions

• Sheriff Tiraspol have not played a competitive match since December 11.
• Five starters from the team that beat Real Madrid in September left Sheriff over the winter and two more are suspended.
• Braga have won three of their last four games in Portugal, including a 2-1 away win at champions Sporting.

Braga can benefit from Sheriff’s spring cleaning

Sheriff welcome Braga to Tiraspol for their first-ever springtime European appearance on Thursday, but the Moldovan champions appear to have cleaned house since their Champions League heroics of last autumn.

Five of the starting line-up from September’s memorable 2-1 win over Real Madrid at the Bernabeu have moved on since the last time Sheriff played a competitive fixture two months ago. Three of the back four on duty that night in Spain plus two attacking midfielders have gone with another two key starters, defensive midfielder Eric Addo and centre-back Gustavo Dulanto suspended for this first leg of the play-off round.

Yuriy Vernydub’s side have played a handful of warm-up fixtures against other top-flight Moldovan sides, but nothing really of a level to adequately prepare for the threat they will face from an in-form Braga team.

Os Arsenalistas in habit of scoring two goals

Carlos Carvalhal has overseen three wins in Braga’s last four games, including a 2-1 victory at the Alvalade over Portuguese champions Sporting Lisbon. His side, who are well organised but can be a bit dull to watch, have scored two goals in three of their last four games and were a tad unlucky to lose to ten-man Vitoria Guimaraes when a draw was probably a fairer result last week.

Braga will take a strong squad, including in-form winger Ricardo Horta, to Moldova for the tie and are plenty good enough to return with a win that would set them up to qualify with ease. The quote of just under Evens for Braga here is quite enticing as Sheriff’s European results had begun to fall away anyway as they took just one point from their last four UCL group games.

Continuing the theme of Braga scoring exactly twice in their recent games, we are forecasting a 2-1 away win for Os Arsenalistas, who have kept just one clean sheet in their last ten Europa League road games.