Next Friday, 14th of November 2014, a rejuvenated Portugal will take on an always complicated Armenia at Estádio do Algarve for Euro 2016 Qualifiers, a match that the Portuguese side needs to win in order not to allow their closest opponents run free at the top of the table and in a way to erase from the supporters’ minds their embarrassing home defeat against Albania back in September.

After their disappointing performance at the Brazil’s World Cup last Summer, Portugal wasn’t able to clean the house and the problems of the past assaulted the team once again when they measured forces with Albania at home more than one month ago. Portugal ended up by losing the match and such defeat precipitated the departure of their manager Paulo Bento who had been at the helm of the team since 2010. Portugal’s new skipper, the highly experienced head coach Fernando Santos, seems to have brought a new soul and a new identity to the team and soon after his arrival, the Portuguese clinched a spectacular last minute win over Denmark in Copenhagen thanks to a quality header from Cristiano Ronaldo after a pinpointing cross from Ricardo Quaresma.

Fernando Santos changed the team’s usual and bland 4-3-3 approach into a more attack-driven diamond shaped 4-4-2 system with Zenit St. Petersburg’s playmaker Danny lurking behind Ronaldo and Nani, who were constantly changing positions up front.

The former manager of the Greece National Team has also promoted the return of several other important players, such as Tiago, Danny, Ricardo Carvalho and Ricardo Quaresma, to the Portuguese squad, thus helping to build a quality mixture of experienced and young players at the core of the team.

The match against Armenia will certainly not be an easy one, but if we look at these teams’ previous clashes, Portugal have always managed to clinch the three points when playing at home and they are certainly hoping that history can repeat itself next Friday.

As for Armenia, the team seems to be free falling after their impressive campaign during the World Cup qualifiers and after the departure of their former boss, Vardan Minasyan, who had catapulted the team into a completely different quality standard. Their new manager, the Swiss Bernard Challandes, only managed to secure one win in seven matches and the team’s recent performances are far from impressive. The long term injuries from Yura Movsisyan and Aras Özbiliz were a huge blow on the team’s aspirations, but the probability of the Spartak Moscow’s sharpshooter being available for the match against Portugal are definitely good news from the Armenian side.

Despite the returns of the Armenian stars Henrik Mkhitaryan and Yura Movsisyan, Portugal have to be considered favourites for the next Friday’s match.

Portugal

Stats: W-2 L-2 D-1

Recent Form - WLLWD

Armenia

Stats: W-0 L-4 D-1

Recent Form - LDLLL

Possible Line-ups

Portugal (4-3-3) – Rui Patricio - Cedric - Pepe - Bruno Alves - Tiago Gomes - William Carvalho - João Moutinho - Tiago  - Nani - Danny - Ronaldo

Armenia (3-5-2) –  Berezovski - Arzumanyan - Haroyan - Voskanyan - Hakrapetjan - Yedigarian - Mkrtchyan - Hovhannisyan - Mhkitaryan - Movsisyan - Sarkisov

Prediction

Portugal 2 Armenia 1