Jornada 24 Preview

By: Greg | April 6th, 2007

Sporting Braga Easter weekend is upon us and Portuguese Liga football has a full slate of games for you to enjoy with your chocolates and bunnies. And awwwaaaay we go… PS - I got totally tired of writing out the entire name of some teams (Naval Primero Mayo) that I’m just going to go by what the average Portuguesian calls the teams. Sorry if this throws you off completely or sends you in to some sort of alternate universe, but all I can say is deal with it.

Friday April 6: Setubal at Porto
Saturday April 7: Academica at Amadora
Saturday April 7: Boavista at Aves
Saturday April 7: Nacional at Paços de Ferreira
Saturday April 7: Naval at Maritimo
Saturday April 7 Evening game: Belenenses at U.d.Leiria
Saturday April 7 Night game: Sporting at Sporting Braga
Monday April 9: Benfica at Beira Mar

Porto smoked Setubal back in November with two early goals and Quaresma adding a third one late. I don’t see that result as changing much this time around, it’s just that at the Dragao they’ll be playing in front of more than 4,500 people like they did in the first tie at Setubal.

The game of the week for me is 3rd place Sporting vs 4th place Braga. Sporting won this tie back on the 6th of November 3-0 with two Braga own goals and a 63rd minute strike by Alecsandro. I see this tie being much closer this time around and hope Sporting realize just how close they are to Benfica and Porto at this point. So I don’t get disowned prior to even making it into my fiance’s family, I’m going to say I see Sporting taking a hard-fought match 2-1.

Benfica have lowly Beira Mar on Monday night which should serve as a breather for them, seeing as they’ve played tough match after tough match lately. However, just as they potentially catch their collective breaths against Beira Mar, Espanyol comes to town three days later for the return leg of their UEFA Cup tie. Enjoy the weekend, and check back in with me. You never know when you’ll have a surprise blog/article treat.