This week we’ll have the kickoff of several state championships across Brazil and one of the attractions is the Bahia state league.
Jacuipense and Vitória open their campaigns in the 2024 season of the Bahian championship.
The competition brings together a total of 10 teams, where the top 4 teams advance to the playoffs and the last 2 on the leaderboard fall to the second state division.
Jacuipense
Jacuipense enters this season trying to stay close to the group of the top 4, to advance to the semi-final stage.
But certainly, scoring is also important to stay away from the relegation zone.
This week the team confirmed the transfer of its midfielder Newton to Botafogo, and also sold full-back Railan to Cuiabá.
In this way, we can understand that a squad that is already quite limited and without pompous invesents, ends up weakening, as some highlights are sold to teams in the first division of the Brazilian Championship.
These players were not part of the squad, as Railan was on loan at Vitória and was part of the Serie B champion squad, and Newton was on loan at Botafogo.
Even so, Jacuipense is not a team with many investments, the tendency is that even at home they have a more reactive proposal against Vitória.
Vitória
Vitória, in turn, comes with high confidence to compete in the state championship, after winning the second division Brazilian Championship title in the 2023 season.
The team is strengthening itself to compete in the national league. This week they announced the signing of midfielder Luan, who was at Grêmio.
The number 7 stood out at the club from Rio Grande do Sul, winning the Copa do Brasil and Libertadores, but at Corinthians he was involved in problems off the field, had incidents with the fans and needs to show his value again.
However, it is a team that last season was absolutely dominant in Series B of the Brazilian Championship and at least for the state championship, it is coming with strength.
It has been strengthening and this week also confirmed the signings of Alerrandro and Maycon Cleiton.
For the debut there is no confirmation of Vitória’s main team, and the tendency is that this beginning of the year will still have a modified team.
The start of the season for first division teams ends up being very complicated, as the pre-season does not have enough time and the teams end up having to rotate their squad, in order to provide better preparation for their main athletes.
Still, for everything they showed last season, Vitória enters with absolute favoritism against Jacuipense.
Conclusion:
Even playing away from home, I believe that Vitória is the favorite and their victory market will be my betting choice.
Another interesting option is the goal line, understanding that the team may still have some difficulties at the beginning of the year, but the visiting team is still the favorite to win this match.