Sunday - Portugal
No margins for errors for Benfica as they try to hold onto their lead in the league and keep a gap between themselves and Sporting & Porto chasing. Therefore, the game away to Braga is a key-match. The rivals will hope Benfica lose points but to me, Benfica are just too strong and even if they are not the goalscoring machine like Barcelona or Real Madrid, they certainly know how to break down opponents and get the narrow wins when they need one. This is such a case.
Braga are facing a turbulent time after Paixao took over the coaching post. A very injury prone team is to face Benfica which makes things worse. Center back Nuno Coelho (19/1) miss the game along with Top scorer Alán (21/6) along with defensive midfielder Custodio (18/2). These are important missings, one on every position. Braga will look for offense by counters and set pieces, because I doubt they will maintain the ball possession much enough to form a proper passing kind of attacking game on Benficas half.
Benfica can field a strong team and dictate this from the beginning in their slow controlling way that wears down opponents. The fact that it is a vital game for them makes me feel even more confident in this play, thereof 3 units.
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Sunday - Sweden Allsvenskan
Helsingborg - Djurgården: Pick: Helsingborg @ 1.85 (1 u)
Helsingborg takes on Djurgården in the opening game of Allsvenskan, and it is vital to get a good start, I'd say extra important for Helsingborg in particular. At the moment, Helsingborg probably has the second best squad on paper, but the issue with them is that the roster is very short of people.. but the ones playing are of great quality, but in case of injuries - I will fade Helsingborg during the season until they sign good enough backups. Anyway, ahead of this game they have a rather healthy team and their lineup is strong led by the pacy winger Accam, and it looks comfortable at the back with Uronen, Sadiku and Krafth.. which are all internationals or on the verge of being internationals. Djurgården on the other hand are missing their best striker Erton Fejzullahu, and the second best striker Jawo is also out (possibly, will be a game time decision). Also midfieler Philip Hellquist is gone, with Tim Söderström and Mantilla.. so there are some question marks in the Djurgården lineup. Moreover they have a bad trend on the road against Helsingborg, last time they managed to beat them on the road was in 2009. 1 unit on a home victory
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Sunday - Sweden Allsvenskan
Malmö - Falkenberg: Pick: Malmö -1.5 @ 1.86 (2 u)
My beloved Malmö FF side starts their season at home versus newcomers Falkenberg FF with their coach being legendary Henrik Larsson, which is a strange hiring in my opinion. Larsson is not a great coach, he failed miserably when he was in charge of Landskrona in Superettan, and this is one level higher than that. However, Malmö are the current champions and they should win this game by a comfortable margin any day, despite having striker Guillermo Molins out, they have Markus Rosenberg and Magnus Eriksson up front who are reliable scorers. Falkenberg will be crying happy tears if they get one point here, but that will come down to weather Malmö are relentless in attack or playing soft due to it being the first game. Falkenberg was a success last year when they got promoted, but almost all key players left for bigger clubs, except striker Stefan Rodevåg who will basically have to carry this team on his own. Nevertheless, 20 000 people are expected to watch Malmö's debut and I see a straight victory, so the -1.5 line is appealing to me. Malmö are known for keeping possession throughout the games, usually at home it is normal for them to have 60-65% possession against teams of this caliber. If Malmö want to avoid the black headlines after the first round, they better win this comfortably.. two units.
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Best of luck to everyone!
6 units pending, hoping to sweep the card here.