Rangers vs. Sporting Braga Predictions: Back Cards at Ibrox

Rangers face Sporting Braga in the second leg of their Europa League quarter-final at Ibrox on Thursday evening and @AnthonyEadson has provided us with his best bets for the action. 

The last time these two sides met in Scotland was back in 2020 when Rangers managed to pull off a 3-2 Victory. The Gers will be looking for more of the same time this time around with them needing a victory after a 1-0 defeat in Portugal seven days ago. 

Rangers eased to a 4-0 victory over St Mirren at the weekend, however they have won just two of their last five competitive matches. Another blow for the Scots is that Alfredo Morelos will not play again this season due to injury, while Ianis Hagi is also set to miss this key European fixture.

Under 2.5 goals has landed in all of Braga’s last six matches in the Europa League and they currently sit fourth in their domestic table behind Sporting, Benfica, and Porto. Abel Ruiz scored the only goal of the game in the first leg and the Portuguese outfit will be hoping that lead will be enough to carry them through to the semi-finals, for which they are priced at 1/2 to do so.

Giovanni van Bronckhorst’s men will have to be ruthless if they are to progress to the semi-finals of the Europa League this season after winning just two of their last five matches on home soil. I think this game looks tough to predict in the Match Result market and have switched my attention to the cards markets and have opted for both teams to receive Over 1.5 cards. 

This selection is available at 17/20 with BetVictor via their Bet Builder feature and I think this should have a strong chance of winning considering what’s at stake here for both clubs. The atmosphere at this famous old stadium should be electric on Thursday evening and I’m hoping this will boil over into plenty of fouls and cards.

A large part of my reasoning behind this pick is that we have a good referee when it comes to brandishing cards. French official Francois Letexier will be the man in the middle for this one and of the 20 refs to take control of 10+ games in the French top-flight this season, he ranks second with a yellow card per game average of 5.00 (15 games).

I’ve also decided to take a punt on James Tavernier being carded in this Europa League match, which is available at 9/2 with bet365. As mentioned above, this is the biggest match of the season so far for Rangers and I fully expect them to commit a few cynical fouls to keep themselves in this game should Braga start strongly

No player has been shown more yellow cards for Rangers in the league this season than right-back Tavernier with nine in just 31 appearances in 2021/2022. With this in mind, I’m surprised to see him as one of the biggest-priced players in the market.

Furthermore, and as mentioned earlier we have one of the better referees for cards in official Francois Letexier. The Frenchman has dished out a whopping 75 yellows (5.0pg) and five red cards (0.33pg) in his 15 Ligue 1 appearances this season and I expect him to produce a large haul here. 

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