This Sunday night we’ll have a Santa Catarina football classic, which shakes up the third round of the competition.
Avaí and Chapecoense meet in Florianópolis, and whoever wins this clash can take a leap up the table and get closer to the championship leaders.
Avaí
Avaí is looking to recover after being defeated in the last round, but currently appears in sixth place, within the playoff classification zone.
Remembering that the Santa Catarina league has a total of 12 teams and 8 of these teams advance to the next stage.
The team started the season well, beating Nação at home by the score of 3 to 2. Despite the tight result, Avaí managed to prevail, scoring 3 goals until the beginning of the second stage with goals from Willian Maranhão, Mário Sérgio and Gabriel Poveda .
In the second round it was Avaí’s turn to suffer its first defeat, in its debut away from home. Their opponent was Hercílio Luz, who managed to score 2-1.
After leaving at a disadvantage, Avaí managed to equalize in the final stretch of the first half, with Ronaldo Henrique from the penalty spot, but they were not a dominant team. He gave the field away to the home team and ended up conceding the defeat goal in the 95th minute of the game.
Avaí is not such a dominant team as to have massive possession of the ball and limit the opponent’s offensive game, but we can expect an aggressive game playing at home, although as a consequence, there should also be some spaces.
Chapecoense
Chapecoense is defending its unbeaten record this season and appears in fourth place, with 4 points.
The team started with a home victory over Hercílio Luz, in a very tough, uncreative game, which ended with the minimum score.
The game was heading towards a goalless draw, until 72 minutes into the game, Marcinho pulled a rabbit out of his hat and scored the only goal of the match.
In the second round, although they didn’t win, we can also consider the goalless draw against Brusque, very good, for playing away from home, and Chapecoense maintaining a very strong defensive game.
The tendency for this classic against Avaí is a game with low lines, a very compact block in its defensive midfield and limiting a lot of construction play from the home team.
These are teams that today have different characteristics, as Avaí played 2 very dynamic games with busy scores, while Chapecoense is a more pragmatic team, betting on defensive play and only had one goal in 2 games in their matches.
Conclusion:
As this is the beginning of the competition, I believe that Avaí will have difficulty building against Chapecoense, due to the model used by the visiting team and therefore, the market with fewer goals will be my betting choice.