Benfica, Sporting de Braga and Porto will close the first round of Football League One away this Saturday, where the Eagles and Arsenalists will have bottom-table opponents, while the Dragons will travel to Guimarães.
After a 2-2 draw at home in the derby against Sporting CP, Benfica are playing Santa Clara (16th) on matchday 17 and know they will always close the first half of the league on the leader’s terms when they have four points more than Braga and five more than Porto.
In the Azores, in the game, which starts at 17:00 local time (18:00 in Lisbon), the team of Roger Schmidt will not be able to count on the title captain Nicolas Otamendi, who was suspended after completing a series of five yellow cards.
The “red” coach, who has received three reinforcements over the past few days: the Dane Kasper Tengstedt, the Norwegian Andreas Schelderup and the Portuguese Goncalo Ramos, should invite Lucas Verissimo or Morato.
Santa Clara, who have not won seven games, three of them in the League, will have coach Jorge Simão in charge of their second game, in which they will also be without defenseman Pierre Sagna suspended after being sent off in the last round.
Shortly before Santa Clara Benfica, Sporting de Braga, the vice-leaders, also visited the “injured”, in this case the 18th and last classified, Pacos de Ferreira, in a game starting at 15:30.
Pasenses, who achieved their first championship victory in the last round, at home with Rio Ave (1: 0), host Sporting de Braga without winger Antunes and striker Matchey Djalo, are punished.
Theoretically already the FC Porto champion has a more difficult trip to the home of Vitoria de Guimarães, emblem in seventh place, two points from Aroc (sixth place, with one more game), three from Casa Pia (fifth place) and eight from Sporting CP (fourth), but have not won seven games.
The Dragons, which are almost at full strength, holding off the injured Evanilson and Zayda, usually still show good results in Guimarães, where they have not lost since 2016 and have won their last three visits to the championship.
In this game, Vitoria will not have striker Anderson Silva sent off in the last game, in addition to some injury losses such as Thiago Silva, André André or Ze Carlos.
The 17th round, which marks the end of the first round of the I League, began on Friday, when Aroca defeated Portimonense (4:0) and Sporting beat Wisela (2:1).
Program of the 17th day:
– Friday, January 20:
Aroca – Portimonense, 4:0
Sporting – Vizela, 2-1
– Saturday, January 21:
Pacos de Ferreira – Sporting de Braga, 15:30
Santa Clara – Benfica, 17:00 local time (18:00 Lisbon time)
Vitoria de Guimarães – Porto, 20:30
– Sunday, January 22:
Marine – Estoril Beach, 15:30
Casa Pia – Gil Vicente, 18:00
Famalicao – Rio Avenue, 20:30
– Monday, January 23:
Boavista – Desportivo de Chaves, 20:15
Author: Portuguese
Source: CM Jornal
I’m Dave Martin, and I’m an experienced journalist working in the news industry. As a part of my work, I write for 24 News Reporters, covering mostly sports-related topics. With more than 5 years of experience as a journalist, I have written numerous articles on various topics to provide accurate information to readers.