Thursday's Bet Of The Day: Cards to flow in Iberian encounter

JACK Wright's (@JackWright_BSB) brilliant Bet of the Day continues on Thursday as we head to Portugal…

Maritimo vs Braga | Thursday 29^th April 2021, 20:30

It’s another intriguing clash as a team fighting for their lives take on a team doing battle at the other end of the table and this time we are heading to Madeira for Primeira Liga action, in search of successive Portuguese Bet of the Day Thursday winners.

Marítimo have won three of the last four matches and have shown some real improvement under Julio Velasquez since replacing Milton Mendes last month with the club rock bottom, all three wins were by the same 1-0 scoreline and a new defensive resolve has given them a chance of surviving an incredible relegation battle in the top flight with just seven points separating bottom side Nacional and 12^th placed Famalicao.

Despite having a man advantage for over 70 minutes, SC Braga were unable to get any points from their Sunday night clash against Sporting and are now five points off third having only managed two narrow wins in the last six matches – they will have to be on it from the first whistle here in what now looks a very tough assignment.

When these two sides met in January at Estádio Municipal de Braga, the Archbishops made home advantage count, securing a 2-1 victory in a game that produced seven cautions, four of which to the visitors.

It is no surprise that I will be focusing on the bookings markets again in a game I think can go either way but should be fiercely contested for the reasons outlined above and it is Verde-Rubros who I want to side with – or against depending on your viewpoint of card collectors!

Maritimo have picked up 17 yellow cards in their last five home games and despite only one in their last one, managed more than their opponents in each of them, compare that to Braga collecting just seven cards in their last five road trips and only once were cautioned more than their hosts.

The man in the middle, Fábio José Costa Veríssimo, has shown the third highest number of cards in the league with an average of six per game, making him more prolific than renowned Artur Manuel Soares Dias, he has taken charge of three Maritimo games showing them eight cards and Braga six from his two games officiating them.

The match booking points are set understandably high at around 60 so given their recent “form” I am going to combine Maritimo to pick up the most booking points with the match seeing over 29.5 using William Hill’s Build #YourOdds feature which gives us a price of 17/20.