THE Sporting de Braga received a repeat of the quarter-final match of the League Cup, facing this Sunday the Famalicão team, which had managed to beat Franclim Carvalho’s team after a penalty shootout.
However, the tenth round of the I League did not have the same outcome, as the Braga team ended up winning this match 3-0, with Ricardo Horta once again being decisive.
After just one victory in the last seven games, Sporting de Braga really wanted to erase the past and start a new phase with their new coach, to get back to the path of triumphs before entering the Conference League scene next Thursday.
Now, the first half had greater momentum for the home team, but there weren’t many opportunities to score in front of goal, and it was necessary to wait for the break to arrive and ideas to be refined in the dressing room before we saw the first goal of the match.
This is because Ricardo Horta ‘took Pedreira on his back’ with a beautiful goal, after a perfect cross from Barisic, there ended up being a shot without letting the ball fall, with his worst foot, to leave Carevic ‘nailed’ to the pitch at Municipal de Braga, in the 53rd minute.
Only 14 minutes were needed for the Minho team to score again, with a great help from Rofino, as Ricardo Horta lightly deflected the ball, which hit the foot of the Famalicão defender, who shot into his own goal and doubled the lead for the visitors.
In the 70th minute of the game, there was an unusual moment for the away team, which was reduced to 10 units after a tackle by Rodrigo Pinheiro on Gabri Martínez, even though he received a yellow card. The red came seconds later, when he laughed in the referee’s face and applauded the decision, for which he received an expulsion order.
Near the end, it was the inevitable Pau Víctor’s turn to change the score of the match, with Sporting de Braga’s third, in the 88th minute, by successfully deflecting Víctor Gómez’s low cross.
In this way, the Braga team are now in eighth place, with 14 points from 10 games, still a long way from the European places, where Arouca is in fifth place, with 20 points, before heading to Denmark to face AGF Aarhus, for the third round of the single league phase of the Conference League. Famalicão maintains eleventh place in the I League, with 10 points from the same number of matches played.
(News updated at 10:27 pm)
