Match Previews

Braga are on a good moment and they are very confident they can beat Red Star by two goals, now... Striker Roland Linz (r) has been scoring on almost every game... The Arsenalists are in a good form and they are coming from some positive results. The last one was an away victory at Paços de Ferreira, which made Braga jump some more places in the league table. Striker Roland Linz (r) is on a great form and he's scoring goals almost on every game. Coach Manuel Machado will certainly trust the goal mission on the Austrian International, whilst Wender (r) and Jorginho (r) should be on the wings to supply him. Since João Pinto (r) is injured, we think his replacement on the centre attacking midfield should be Vandinho (r). Anyway, let's see the options coach Manuel Machado has got on his hands. Vandinho (r) scored the second goal against Paços de Ferreira and it seems he's on a good position to feature the starting lineup, in front of the two defensive midfielders Frechaut (sp) and Roberto Brum (r), who seem to be working fine together. The interesting fact is that Vandinho previously had a kind of an argument with coach Manuel Machado but now he's determined to show he's worth to play. The centre-backs will be Paulo Jorge (r) and Alberto Rodríguez (r), whilst Carlos Fernandes (sp) will probably stay on the left-back instead of the poor-form César Peixoto (r), although another option could be using César Peixoto as left-midfielder, move left-footed Wender to the right side, Jorginho into the middle, with Vandinho possibly on the bench. Braga collected three 1-1 draws in the three games they played in the UEFA Cup group stage so far and the last European home game was a good 1-1 draw against Bayern. Now The Arsenalists are looking forward to win Red Star by two goals (to beat Bolton on goal difference) and they will be automatically on the next stage of the competition if they do it - the draw will never be enough; a simple one-goal margin will be enough only if Bayern and Aris don't draw. Braga are also well positioned on the league table with 21 points in 39 possible: unbeaten in the last 4 league matchdays, including a home win against Sporting. In fact, Braga are a very strong side when playing at home. The only game they lost at home was precisely on the 1st league matchday against current leaders Porto (18th August). Since then, in the Liga, they won 4 times (Estrela, Nacional, Sporting and Marítimo) and drew once (against Benfica). The Peruvian centre-back Rodríguez trained with some cautions but he's very likely to start.