Vitoria Guimaraes vs Puskas Academy Predictions

• Vitoria Guimaraes have lost only two of their eight home European qualifiers
• Puskas finished last season with a run of just one win in nine
• Vitoria have lost three of their last 14 home fixtures

Vitoria out to avoid an upset

Vitoria Guimaraes reached the Europa League group stages last season, and although they will have to settle for the Conference League this year, they are strong favourites to come through this clash.

This is a first competitive game of the campaign for the Portuguese side, who have lost just one of their last nine home matches in European football.

There is a bit of unrest at the club though, with manager Pepa sacked just days before this game, despite their sixth placed finish in the Primeira Liga, so that provides a degree of uncertainty for the side.

Otherwise, pre-season has been fairly good, with wins over Gil Vicente (5-0) and Torreense (1-0) before a 2-1 defeat against Porto at the weekend.

Can Puskas capitalise on Vitoria uncertainty?

This is just a third campaign in Europe for Puskas, who are an improving club that finished in third place in Hungary’s top flight last season.

Zsolt Hornyák’s side have had a poor pre-season though, losing to Hoffenheim and Slavia Prague, that after finishing the previous campaign with a run of one win in nine.

They have never won an away match in European competition, while they were knocked out at this stage of the Conference League qualifiers twelve months ago when suffering a 5-0 aggregate defeat to RFS of Latvia.

I predict that the upheaval at Vitoria will prove to be elementary as they should have enough to win this and with three or more goals in the match, selecting 2-1 as a correct score prediction.