Two teams in growing need of a win meet at the Estadio da Madeira on Sunday when Nacional host Gil Vicente in the Primeira Liga.
Both sides have won just one of their opening six games this season and come into this match on four-game and five-game winless runs respectively.
Match preview
© Reuters
Survival remains the main aim for both of these teams this season, and potential six-pointers against relegation rivals - a category this match falls into - are therefore of heightened importance.
Nacional have been a yo-yo team in the Portuguese top flight in recent years, alternating between relegation and promotion in each of the last four seasons, so they will be relatively satisfied with a solid start to this campaign.
Luis Freire's side were crowned champions of the second tier on a points-per-game basis last season and netted a 92nd-minute equaliser to earn an entertaining 3-3 draw against Boavista in their first game back in the big time.
That is one of four times Nacional have shared the spoils in their opening six outings, only winning once - against basement club Farense - but also only losing once, against high-flying Sporting Braga.
It is difficult to draw too many conclusions from their start to the season, then, but they will be confident of chalking up a second victory of 2020-21 this weekend, and that would begin to paint their campaign in a much better light.
Gil Vicente come into this match off the back of three successive defeats and without a win in five since the opening day, taking only two points from the 15 on offer in that time.
In their defence, it has been a difficult run of fixtures with Porto, Sporting Lisbon and Vitoria Guimaraes - three of the current top six - in succession, and they have by no means been blown away in any of those games.
Even so, Rui Almeida will be desperate to get a second win as manager under his belt as soon as possible after seeing that winless run leave his side just one point above the relegation zone.
Gil Vicente have only won one of their last eight away league games, though, and have only scored once in their last four so they will need to improve upon that if they are to come away with anything from Funchal.
Nacional Primeira Liga form: DWDLDD
Gil Vicente Primeira Liga form: WDDLLL
Team News
Nacional
Out: Francisco Ramos (coronavirus), Joao Vigario (coronavirus), Kalindi (muscle), Vincent Koziello (muscle)
Gil Vicente
Out: None
We say: Nacional 1-1 Gil Vicente
Nacional have been the draw specialists this season and, while their visitors arrive on a run of three defeats, they have all been difficult matches and ones in which they only narrowly lost too. We can see another share of the spoils on Sunday.
Top betting tip
Our expert tipster partners at Sporita.com are predicting over 1.5 goals in this match. Click here to find out what else they are predicting for this game and for more of their tried-and-tested football tips.Over 1.5:data
Barney Corkhill
Data Analysis
Our analysis of all available data, including recent performances and player stats up until an hour before kickoff, suggested the most likely outcome of this match was a Nacional win with a probability of 42.84%. A draw had a probability of 29.4% and a win for Gil Vicente had a probability of 27.72%.
The most likely scoreline for a Nacional win was 1-0 with a probability of 14.59%. The next most likely scorelines for that outcome were 2-0 (8.78%) and 2-1 (7.95%). The likeliest drawn scoreline was 1-1 (13.22%), while for a Gil Vicente win it was 0-1 (11%). The actual scoreline of 2-1 was predicted with a 8% likelihood. Our data analysis correctly predicted that Nacional would win this match.
