Maritimo vs Sporting Fingal – Europe League 

Marítimo will start tonight its 7th participation in European competitions and will play against the Irish team of Sporting Fingal.

The team coached by Mitchell Van der Gaag will try to get a result that will allow them to look at the rematch, one week from now, with some tranquility.

Europa League not being Marítimo’s prime objective, since the Portuguese league is always the team’s priority, the red-greens get clearly the favoritism against a team that is not used to these competitions.

That won’t make Sporting Fingal more or less in range to the red-greens, but in this kind of competition experience counts and Marítimo has some advantage in that field.

But because Marítimo only played 3 friendlies so far in the pre-season, despite being the team that started the pre-season earlier, Sporting Fingal will be clearly in better shape since they’0ve already played 20 games in their season.

Playing in a borrowed stadium, and being a Madeira native as i am, i know supporters won’t be in much numbers in Nacional stadium, Marítimos arch-rivals. So support will be missed.

Mitchell Van der Gaag said the most important thing is not to suffer any goal, but will they score?

I think Marítimo will win this game, but it won’t be with high numbers and against this team they will certainly defend, the Under 2.5 goals will strike hands on, so i hope.