Botafogo FR vs Bahia Prediction: Fogão will not suffer two consecutive home defeats

As the Copa do Brasil continues to heat up, Botafogo will face off against Bahia at the Estadio Nilton Santos for the first leg of their round of 16 clash. Fogo is fresh off a distasteful 0-3 defeat at home to Cruzeiro in their last league game after 8 league games without a defeat. Bahia on the other hand is without a win in their last four league games. We believe Botafogo will not suffer another defeat at the Estadio Nilton Santos and they are poised for a win or a draw here. Please see the carefully prepared tips.

Botafogo’s 8-game unbeaten streak finally came to an end at the hands of Cruzeiro in their last league game which ended in a devastating 0-3 defeat. Botafogo is currently second placed in the Brasileirão Série A with 12 wins, 4 draws, and 4 losses from a total of 20 games played. They are also level on points with league leaders Flamengo who still have a game in hand. Manager Artur Jorge has a lot to worry about as some of his key players are out injured. 

Bahia is without a win in their last 4 league games with two draws and two losses. Their most recent league game against Internacional ended in a 1-1 draw with Bahia losing the lead in the 89th minute of the game. Bahia is also doing well in the Brasileirão Serie A as they are currently in 7th place in the league table with 9 wins, 5 draws, and 6 losses from the 20 league games played. 

A closer look at their last 20 encounters shows that Bahia has won 11 of those encounters while Botafogo has won 6 with 3 draws.

Both teams have met once this season in the Serie A and Bahia won that game with a 1-2 scoreline. As it stands, Rogerio Ceni currently leads the H2H statistics between the two managers. Bahia is without a clean sheet in their last three meetings as it’s always a tough encounter whenever these two teams clash and as such, we do not expect any clean sheet here. Moreover, Bahia has also failed to keep a clean sheet in their last 6 encounters across all competitions and we do not expect one here, we envisage goals from both sides. Both teams to score at 1.98 odds is an option to consider. 

There have been more than three goals in 4 of their last 5 meetings and with the importance of this game, we might see over 2.5 goals here. A more conservative option is a minimum of two goals from either team.