This week sees the visit of Braga to St Andrews, and as my knowledge of Portuguese football isn’t that great I thought I’d take a look at how our opponents got on this weekend, with a view to seeing where their strengths and weaknesses are.

It’s easy to typecast Braga as easier opponents than we might face in this competition. After all, they only finished one win ahead of CD Nacional in last year’s Liga ZON Sagres, and I think Blues fans saw how poor Nacional were at St Andrews. In addition, like Nacional Braga are poor travellers in Europe; despite making the Europa League final last year they only won two away games in the eighteen games that they played until the final – a 4-3 thriller in Sevilla which had two goals for either side in the last five minutes, and a dour 1-0 victory over Champions League group whipping boys Partizan Belgrade. On their three visits to Britain, they lost 2-1 to Celtic at Parkhead, 6-0 to Arsenal at the Emirates, and held Liverpool to a 0-0 draw at Anfield. Clearly, this is a team like Nacional that doesn’t like travelling.

However, to write them off would be daft. This is a team of pace, guile and power. I’ve watched the goals from their 3-1 home victory against local rivals Gil Vicente, and it’s obvious that they are no mugs. The second and third goals both come from great through balls, and whilst 35 year old striker Nuno Gomes took the limelight for coming off the bench to score twice you have to admire the Brazillian Lima, who’s shot created the chance for the first and who’s sublime ball set up Helder Barbosa to score the arsenalista’s second goal.

From talking to Ben Shave, who writes for www.portugoal.net, I’ve gathered that Braga are going to be a tough prospect. Their attack is pacy – left winger Helder Barbosa is an FM legend (if that means anything to you); and creative, as you’d expect from a team packed full of Brazillians. Whoever is in defence for Blues needs to be on their guard for the slide-rule pass, and to stop the wingers getting to the byline to cross. However, like Nacional I suspect they’ll be susceptible to pressure on their defence – purely because I think they’ll be set up to attack us and I think that will impinge on the team’s defensive duties.

I firmly believe it’s going to be a game where Blues will have to soak up some early pressure and squeeze out their midfield before hitting them with the creativity we have. I can see us going with the 4-2-3-1 formation that has served us well under Hughton, with players like Burke, Redmond, Beausejour, and Elliott supporting a big striker like Marlon King. We’re going to need a couple of midfield “destroyer” types – maybe N’Daw, maybe Gomis (if he’s not picked up a knock), maybe Spector to break up play and stop the Braga midfield from playing killer balls.

I do believe it’s a tie we can win – but it’s not going to be easy. Hopefully a sell out crowd (like the one against CD Nacional) will help to play it’s part in pushing the team on.

Tags: Chris Burke, Europa League, Guirane N'Daw, Helder Barbosa, Jean Beausejour, Jonathan Spector, Marlon King, Morgaro Gomis, Nathan Redmond, Nuno Gomes, SC Braga, Wade Elliott