Normally, the people of Guimarães walk to the Estádio D. Afonso Henriques for this type of match, but it remains empty on Thursday evening. However, a difficult match is planned for Vitória Guimarães and Sporting. Can Vimaranenses win its fourth game in a row?
Vitória Guimarães:
After the big three (Porto, Sporting and Benfica), Vimaranenses has the largest fan base in Portugal. It is therefore a big disappointment that the club must resume the season without these supporters. However, Vitória Guimarães has a very strong season. After a false start, the team of Ivo Vieira started to turn and until the corona stop the team managed to climb to sixth place in the ranking. The club also did good business in Europe. Vitória Guimarães remained unbeaten in qualifying, but a group with Arsenal, Eintracht Frankfürt and Standard Liège turned out to be too powerful. Five points was therefore not unexpected, but the winning goal of Marcus Edwards in a packed Commerzbank arena will remain on the minds of the former Eredivisionist for a long time.
Vitória Guimarães turned out to be in good shape in the last three games and Vieira managed to close them in a winning way.
Sporting:
Sporting supporters have been waiting for a league title for eighteen years, but this dream has also disappeared from view this football year. The team led by Silas spilled a lot of points and when Famalicão lost in March, he left. He had only been a head coach for six months, but making up for the twenty-point gap on league-leader FC Porto seemed downright impossible. In addition, after the group stage, the team was eliminated in the Europa League in a spectacular game against Basaksehir. One game before the corona outbreak, Sporting stunted with a bizarre coach change. Portuguese ex-international Rúben Amorim started his career as head coach two months earlier, but de Leeuwen paid a lump sum of no less than ten million euros for the brand new head coach of Braga.
The Portuguese cup winner failed to defend this title and was eliminated in February by the Braga of Amorim. Therefore, the only goal in mind is third place. With that, Sporting would directly qualify for the Europa League. However, the gap between Sporting and Vitória Guimarães is only five points so there is a lot at stake for Amorim.
PREDICTION: Under 2,5 goals @ 1,81
