In the round 3 of Champions League group stage 2 bottom teams from Group G will face off at Stadion Jan Breyde.
The home side is currently at 6th position in their domestic league, with a record of 5W-1D-4L, with a narrow loss to Charleroi behind them. The teams were quite equal performance wise, but a late goal from Bedla in 90′ sunk Brugge’s ship. Losses like that do not come often, but they are painful nonetheless. If they had not lost that match, Club Brugge would be on a 4 win streak and at 3rd position in the league. However, I don’t see that loss having much affect on the squad, they still lost valuable points, but morale should not be hurt. Now they need to let that defeat go and shift their focus to Champions League match against Porto.
In Champions League Brugge has yet to taste a victory, losing to Leicester (0:3) in the opening match of their European campaign and FC Copenhagen (4:0). ON one hand Brugge can put up a good performance in their domestic league, but it seems there is a completely different story, when it comes to Champions League. Losing a match against an opponent is reasonable, till you loose with such a high margin. At the moment Brugge has conceived 7 goals and scored 0. With these performances, they can easily be seen as a team who “gives free points”. Porto will be aware of that and will try their best to grab their second points in the Champions League.
The Portuguese team on the other hand have been unfortunate in the first 2 matches in CL group stage, drawing their first match against Copenhagen (1:1) and losing the second one against Leicester by only a goal (1:0). As for Porto’s domestic league, they are currently sitting at 2nd position and are unbeaten in the last 4 matches played. Looking at previous 2 matches, Porto has completely dominated their opponents; Nacional (0:4) and Gafanha (0:3). When a team is able to perform that well, you can be sure their confidence will rise. Maybe that confidence boost just might help them for the upcoming match.
As for missing players:
– Club Brugge: Lior Refaelov, Bjorn Engels
– Porto: Jesus Manuel Corona
VERDICT
Porto are coming into this match as a favourite, despite playing away from home. Well that does not come off as a surprise, as they have shown much better performances in recent matches compared to Club Brugge. Ehenever you look at domestic league or Champions league, Porto comes on the top. Of course we must take into consideration Brugge’s great home showings, winning all 3 matches played at Stadion Jan Breydel. Despite that Porto is still a favourite in my eyes, but do not expect them having an easy match.
Prediction: I recommend than you skip the prematch markets and try to get higher odds than 2.00 on Porto at in-play markets.
Odds: Atleast 2.00 at Asian bookies
