Braga – Panathinaikos

Portugal club to win the first match of the duel

Braga has never won the Portuguese league title in its entire history. However, this does not prevent the team to stay in the top 5 of national football for fifteen years and consistently reach the play-offs of European tournaments. Once this team even played in the final of the Europa League. In the Champions League qualification Braga got the right to play for the first time in the last ten seasons. This was due to the fact that the club displaced the "green and white" from the "eternal" top three in the form of Benfica, Porto and Sporting. At the last stage of qualification for Europe's elite tournament, the Portuguese twice defeated Bacca Topola: 3-0 and 4-1. Last Saturday Braga played the second round of the national championship and in the 52nd minute lost to Shavish, but in time gathered themselves and won the final victory with a score of 4:2. Bookmakers have identified the home team as the clear favorites, offering odds of 1.68 on their win. The Athens club is one of the greatest in the history of Greek football. The title of national champion conquered him twenty times. However, after winning the 2009/2010 championship, Panathinaikos stopped competing with Olympiacos and other clubs for the title for more than ten seasons, and even finished eleventh in the 2017/2018 Super League draw. Last year's championship did not bring the club the long-awaited triumph. Under the leadership of Ivan Jovanovic, the Athens club won the main Super League tournament, but at the stage of the fight for the championship title lost the first place to AEK. This result allowed Panathinaikos to start the Champions League qualification from the second round, where the lot determined its opponent Dnipro-1. Already in the first match, held in Kosice, the Greek club left no chance to the opponent, allowing the Ukrainians to score only a prestige goal with the score 3:0 in their favour. The return meeting in Athens rattled the nerves of local fans, but Panathinaikos equalised and went through. The Greek club experienced a real triumph in the rivalry with Marseille, who were beaten in France in a penalty shootout. We bet that Braga will not play as carelessly as the French and will win the opening match of the duel.