Sporting Braga vs Shakhtar Donetsk Betting Tips & Predictions

Sporting Braga can think of themselves as fairly fortunate to have reached this stage in the Europa League. Their last match was against Fenerbahce, and they went into the home leg needing to overturn a 1-0 deficit from Turkey. It wasn’t going so well, with the game tied at 1-1 going into the final 30 minutes, meaning Braga needed another two goals.

The turning point of the match came in the 69th minute as the referee awarded Braga a controversial penalty, causing the Fenerbahce players to go into meltdown. Fenerbahce ended the game having had three players dismissed and lost 4-1 on the night, giving Braga almost a free pass into the quarter finals.

The Portuguese outfit haven’t been particularly impressive recently either. They lost 5-1 away to Benfica on Friday to take their record to three defeats and two wins in their last five outings in all competitions. It doesn’t get much better when you look further back either, with three wins, three defeats, and four draws making up their last ten results.

Shakhtar Donetsk are coming into the game in much higher spirits than their opponents. They hammered Metalist 8-1 in the Ukrainian Premier League on Friday to keep them within three points of the top spot in the table. This result was their 7th win in their last nine outings in all competitions, including their comprehensive 4-1 aggregate win over Anderlecht in the Europa League.

Away from home Shakhtar have won four of their last five in all competitions, but Sporting Braga have shown that they are no pushovers on home turf. They haven’t lost since November and have won nine of their last 11 there.

Four of Braga’s last five home matches have ended with three or more goals in them, and Shakhtar have seen more than two goals netted in seven of their last nine outings. I think this could be a high scoring match as both teams try to earn an advantage in the first leg, and odds of 13/10 for Over 2.5 Goals look excellent value for money. I’m going for a 2-1 Shakhtar Win at 10/1 as well due to the dent in Braga’s ego that Friday will have caused.