Maritimo have had a perfect start in their return to Liga Portugal. Academico are coming off a disappointing 1-0 home defeat to Santa Clara, my money on a home win in Madeira.
HTH - Maritimo on Top
Maritimo have a dominant 6-1 advantage against Academico Viseu alongside seven draws.
Perfect Start for Maritimo
Maritimo have had a strong start in their return to the Portuguese top flight, winning their opening two games.
Mitchell van der Gaag’s side had 39% possession against Casa Pia but were efficient up front, Martín Tejón assisting Raphael Guzzo in a 1-0 victory.
The Madeiran side fell behind at Famalicao but took advantage of errors to come away with a 2-1 win. Simo Bouzaidi equalised in the first half and Maurice Boakye netted in added time.
Van der Gaag admittied his side had some luck: "This team fights hard, they have quality, we scored, maybe we were lucky, but my team works hard and it's very important for us to win points."
"The team's fight is to avoid relegation, and these are three more points. I was happy with the number of fans who were here, which shows that Marítimo is alive. Maybe we had a bit of luck, but we fought for it."
Viseu Poor at Home
Academico Viseu had a great start at a difficult venue, coming away from Estadio da Luz with a 2-2 draw against Benfica. They trailed twice, equalising through Rúben Pereira and André Clóvis
That positivity couldn’t be translated to their debut at home, losing 1-0 to Santa Clara. They made a late rally but it was too little too late, ending with 0.69-1.26 xG.
Manager Bruno Pinheiro lamented an early mistake that led to Santa Clara’s goal: "We can't be the ones to make the championship harder than it already is, and in the first half we can't go in and concede a goal the way we did."
"It's halfway to losing. The first half was dominated by Santa Clara, the second by Académico, which intensified as time went on. Unfortunately, the opponent scored as a result of our mistake; we couldn't make any difference from our work"
Predicted Lineups & Team News
Maritimo (4-2-3-1): Alfonso Pastor; Igor Julião, Rafael Fernandes, Romain Correia, Paulo Henrique; Rodrigo Andrade, Vladan Danilović; Simo Bouzaidi, Raphael Guzzo, Martín Tejón; Adrián Butzke
Mitchell van der Gaag has selected the same starting side in both games and won’t make any changes to his winning team.
Left-back Nathanael Ogbeta and midfielder Maxime Dominguez are injured. Carlos Daniel left to join Al Jabalain and Noah Madsen joined Holstein Kiel for €700k.
Academico Viseu (4-3-3): Ewerton; Robinho, Anthony Correia, Nikos Michelis, Pedro Barcelos; Soufiane Messeguem, Alejandro Mestanza, Cihan Kahraman; João Guilherme, André Clóvis, Álvaro Zamora
Pinheiro made two changes at half-time against Santa Clara, defenders Rúben Pereira and Igor Milioransa making way for Nikos Michelis and Pedro Barcelos.
Gustavo Costa, Tomas Silva and Luís Silva are doubtful for this one.