An interesting clash in the capital with the home side set to cast envious eyes on a Yverdon-Sport team that occupy the spot in the league table that they probably hoped to be in when the season kicked off. It hasn’t quite worked out that way, the roles have almost been completely reversed with YS looking up at promotion and Thun having to settle for another tepid mid-table finish.

Despite their improvement over the last few weeks, FC Thun have left it a little too late to be given any serious consideration as a candidate for the three promotion options at the top end of the table and oddly enough their run of good form since November is probably an indication of just why they are on the outside looking through the window at the promotion race rather than being directly involved in it. Yes, the Bernese club have won four of their last seven and lost just once, but all of those wins came against sides below them in the bottom half of the table and their two most recent wins post-winter break came at the expense of bottom club Neuchatel Xamax and the side occupying the spot directly above, Vaduz. Some may say any run of winning form is good, but it has been an inability to take wins against the sides in the top half that has hindered a club that has barely threatened promotion since their relegation a couple of seasons ago. With the visit of in-form Yverdon-Sport on the horizon, there is solace in the fact that Thun are a stronger proposition at home and this will be a test to see just how shatterproof this run of form currently is.

Yverdon-Sport suffered a surprise hiccup at home to Vaduz last Friday evening to end a run of four straight victories. The result, coupled with a late victory for FC Wil in their own match last week, has knocked YS off their perch at the top as they now trail their title rivals by two points. Second place with a four-point buffer over Lausanne in the promotion play-off spot is hardly a disappointing position to be in though and that position they do occupy is the second automatic entry into the Super League, something far beyond what was predicted for this team at the beginning of the season. Marco Schallibaum’s players boast the best away record in the league and have lost only one match on the road to a team in the bottom half of the table, statistics that will provide plenty of confidence ahead of a trip to the Stockhorn Arena and fifth-placed Thun.

Yverdon score and concede a lot of goals away from the Municipal, but I think the value here is for them not to lose in Bern. Thun do have a decent home record, but only one of their four wins from their eleven home games has come against a top-half side and one in a Lausanne outfit that has a less-than-solid away record. YS have done the double over Thun this season and I think they’ll have enough to avoid defeat here.

Seven games in the second division this Friday, and the most interesting one is probably the game between Heracles Almelo and Telstar. Last week, Heracles dropped points at home against Willem II due to a last minute equaliser, but that had only been the third time this season and generally Heracles are unstoppable in their own stadium. That is partly due to the plastic pitch that Heracles is famous for. It served them really well in the 17 consecutive years in the top flight, where they always had a strong positive balance in home games and it helped them even more so in the second division.

Telstar are in reasonable form this second half of the season and they climbed up to the edge of the play-off spots, but with NAC Breda, Roda JC and ADO Den Haag breathing in their neck, they are still far from certain to make the end of the year finale. Telstar don’t really give away that many chances, but really struggle to score. Against the strongest attacking force of the second division, they’ll face a whole new challenge and I suspect they won’t go near keeping a clean sheet.

Telstar seem complete for this game, but against a Heracles side that barely gives away points on their own turf, they are unlikely to get a result.

NAC Breda seemed to be on the way up earlier this month. Despite two defeats against strong opponents, the first four matches under new manager Peter Hyballa looked promising. NAC were set to get back into play-off territory, until bottom of the table Jong FC Utrecht sent them home with a 4-1 defeat. Utrecht may have been a little bit stronger than usual due to it being a Monday game where some of the first team fringe players are in, but it was mostly NAC that looked lacklustre. Captain Odysseus Velanas had been flying this year, but he had an off day in Utrecht. It is not likely that this will happen again in this game. NAC collects the majority of their points at home and again face a pretty weak opponent.

FC Dordrecht seemed to have got a boost earlier this month, when they recorded a 4-0 victory over FC Eindhoven, but two defeats later they are back to being the bottom dwellers they usually are, keeping only three teams below them. Tidjani Toure joined on loan from Feyenoord as a replacement for top goalscorer Aliou Balde and immediately set his mark with two goals against Eindhoven. However, he fell out of favour before the match against VVV last week and only came on for half an hour. Dordrecht seem to have improved their defence a bit, but will face a whole new challenge, as they’ll be without centre back and captain Toine van Huizen in the next few weeks. Van Huizen received a three-match ban after he was sent off against VVV.

Without their captain in front of a full stadium in Breda, it is unlikely the away side will get a result.

VVV are in full fight for promotion and are playing well this season. With Sven Braken and Nick Venema they have plenty of quality going forward and that also goes for full backs Tristan Dekker and Simon Janssen. In fact, together they were responsible for both goals in the 2-1 victory over Dordrecht last week. VVV score a decent amount of goals, but also concede quite a lot. This year, they only kept one clean sheet in eight matches.

TOP Oss were one of the most boring teams in the league and they have been close to the bottom for the majority of the season. However, they sacked manager Kristof Aelbrecht just before Christmas and with his replacement, Marcel van der Sloot, they play a lot more exciting football. In fact, they scored in every game since van der Sloot took over. That isn’t just because of the new manager, because the club strengthened the attacking line with offensive midfielder Thijs van Leeuwen coming from FC Twente and striker Kay Tejan, who returned to the side after a disappointing six-month spell in Moldova.

With the new manager, the new signings and winger Jearl Margaritha in great form, goals don’t seem to be the problem any more for TOP Oss. The newfound attacking football has come at a bit of a cost though, as they have conceded plenty of goals, especially in away games. I think VVV are favourites to win this game, but TOP Oss have improved a fair bit, so overs seems the safer bet here.

A huge promotion clash at the Lidl Arena awaits on Friday as league leaders FC Wil play host to pre-season title favourites Lausanne. Having each traded a win against the other on their own patch and with both sides in strong form heading into this third meeting, this match has all the ingredients to be a classic in the Challenge League. Four points separate the two teams and at this stage of the season, a home win would almost certainly spell the end for Lausanne’s hopes of claiming the title while simultaneously boosting Wil towards an automatic promotion spot at the very least. Victory for Lausanne, with Yverdon-Sport still sandwiched in between the two, would make a dramatic race at the top even more unpredictable as the season winds down over the next few months.

Wil’s strong defensive resolve has certainly been tested after the World Cup break. The 3-2 win over Xamax at home was a third successive win and three wins from four since that break, but it also marked the sixth and seventh goals they have conceded in those four games. Away from home is one thing but there will have been some concerns at shipping two to bottom-club Xamax when they had only previously conceded six goals at the Lidl Arena in the ten games prior. Still, they are unbeaten at home, don’t concede often and have notched thirty-one goals in eleven matches.

Lausanne were quick to show they meant business after the break, brushing aside bogey team Stade Lausanne-Ouchy, trouncing Aarau and then sending three past Xamax as they scored an impressive eleven goals in three games, smashing their away day problems with those strong wins over SLO and Xamax. Inexplicably, a 1-1 draw at home to Bellinzona followed those games and is a reminder of the vulnerability that LS have shown at times to keep them at arm’s length for most of the season when it comes to the race for promotion. As mentioned, their away form has been a concern, they had only two wins and a draw in nine games before those two recent victories and a trip to eastern Switzerland is not exactly ideal as they look to keep momentum rolling.

I predict FC Wil to maintain their unbeaten home record here. Despite those victories at SLO and Xamax, LS don’t score enough away from the Tulliere and have only hit eleven in eleven games. Wil have the firepower to score goals aplenty and I’m just not convinced that LS has enough in response to be able to win this match.

This is arguably one of the weakest Longford Town squads ever assembled, and it’s certainly the most inexperienced I’ve come across in my time following the league. Longford Town were raided during the off-season and their new manager Stephen Henderson has been forced to turn to youth in order to plug the gaps.

Longford were abysmal in a 3-1 defeat at home to their local rivals Athlone on Saturday, an Athlone side who only looked an average outfit themselves which makes the fact Athlone could have won by a wider margin all the more alarming.

Title favourites Waterford thumped their local rivals Wexford 3-0 on the opening night of the season and in terms of the resources they have compared to Longford, the Blues have been able to bring high class talents across from the UK while Longford are relying on kids who’ve never played senior football. To add insult to injury, De Town were knocked out of the Leinster Senior Cup midweek by a non-league side, and the club have in term terminated their captain’s contract after just one game!

Wassim Aouachria bagged a hat-trick on Friday and given how badly Longford struggled against a big physical centre forward in Frantz Pierrot, Aouachria could cause huge damage to this Town back four.

For me, Longford will do well if they have two clubs below them this season while Waterford have only enhanced their tag as title favourites with such a commanding opening day success. This could get ugly for Longford, -1 Waterford looks incredible value at 5/4.

Kerry FC made a promising start to life at this level despite defeat at home to Cobh Ramblers last Friday. The newest name in Irish football showed plenty of fight as they went down 2-0 and were unlucky not to at least score on the night as a few decisions seemed to go against the Kingdom club.

Cobh Ramblers marquee signing Jack Doherty was the difference on the night with his sublime free-kick lighting up the game and it would probably be a common theme throughout the season that the better individual talents the more established clubs can call on will undo this green crop of Kerry players.

Bray Wanderers were fortunate to take maximum points from their trip to Treaty United on the opening weekend as the Seagulls capitalised on some uncharacteristic sloppy Treaty defending to score at the death. However, any win in the Market Fields is a positive one and with the players Bray have brought in during the winter they should have too much as Kerry make the first of many gruelling away trips this season.

Dundalk looked to have the easiest of opening night fixtures as they hosted relegation favourites UCD. Patrick Hoban has his eyes set of becoming the Lilywhites all-time leading goalscorer and it looked a formality he’d take another step towards that honour when Dundalk were awarded an early penalty. However, Hoban saw his spotkick saved and that was a sign of things to come on the night as Dundalk put in an extremely sloppy display and were hanging on for a point at the end as the game ended 1-1.

Bohemians first performance of the season was an interesting one as they made a lightning quick start by going 2-0 up against a Cork City side who looked out of their depth at this level in the first-half but the Rebels soon found their feet to force a rip roaring finish but Bohs did hold on for a 2-1 win. To win away in Cork, in front of a sold out Turners Cross, with their backs to the wall at the end will be a good bonding experience for this new look Bohs side who will now be backed themselves by a bumper home crowd as Dundalk come to town.

Bohemians Director of Football Pat Fenlon was at the Dundalk game against UCD and will surely have relayed the message to the Bohs players that they’ve got nothing to fear from Dundalk based on Friday night’s showing. However, Dundalk Head Coach Stephen O’Donnell is a man who held himself and his teammates to incredibly high standards when he was captain at Dundalk during their golden era under Stephen Kenny and he now holds his players to those same standards so I’d expect there were some harsh words exchanged at the training ground this week.

O’Donnell handed four players competitive debuts from the start on Friday and the Galway native has already had some injury issues to contend with early on this season with Darragh Leahy (sick), Robbie Benson (injury), and John Mountney (ACL – out for season) all missing the game against UCD. As a result, new signing Louie Annesley had to play at left-back (naturally a CB), while the Dundalk midfield struggled to link up with the likes of Ryan O’Kane and Pat Hoban throughout the match.

Dundalk have brought in some more overseas loan signings in the lead up to the game, signings that are needed given Dundalk’s small squad but further bedding in time may now be required for this new look team.

Dundalk struggled for pace at the back last season and pace is certainly something Bohemians possess in attacking areas. Dundalk also struggled on their travels last season so this looks a great opening for Bohemians. The only caveat to that is Dundalk’s H2H record last season was excellent with 3 wins and a draw so we’ll play this one slightly conservatively.

Sportivo Ameliano find themselves on a four game winless run having drawn three and lost one in the Apertura to date. Meanwhile Nacional have all eyes on a trip to Lima for the 2nd leg of the Copa Libertadores second round and will likely rest some players.

Humberto Garcia’s side have taken the lead in three of their four matches this season but were pegged back in all three and from set pieces as they have struggled at the back. It is a surprise for a manager that had so much success with General Díaz by building on the foundation of a strong defence, but there have been mitigating factors. Defenders Franco Ortellado and Marcos Martinich have only played together once because of red cards and subsequent suspensions. The latter still won’t be available for Friday’s game.

Nacional lost their first league game of the season last weekend, conceding two early goals to Libertad and despite pulling one back in the first half and then missing a penalty, they couldn’t do enough to earn a point. Pedro Sarabia fielded a different team from that which would play Libertadores in midweek, only goalkeeper Espínola and veteran central defender Benegas started both. That said, there is still quality and experience with youngster Gustavo Caballero and midfield duo Edgar Orzusa and Willian Candia.

Sportivo Ameliano surprised Nacional 2-0 in the last meeting which effectively ended the latter’s title hopes, which came just four days after the V Azulada had also prevailed in the Copa Paraguay final in a penalty shootout. Prior to that the three other games in 2022 had seen BTTS and Over 2.5 goals land and we should be in for something similar. Ameliano have one clean sheet and have failed to score once in their five matches this season, Nacional have scored in all six games and kept two clean sheets.

Cerro Porteño have won back-to-back away games under new coach Facundo Sava and head into this match at La Nueva Olla with just one defeat in 21 games. Resistencia are in freefall, three defeats to nil with just a surprise 3-0 away win against 10-men Ameliano to show for their season so far.

Goalkeeper Jean will still be injured for this match but his understudy Miguel Martínez was solid in Chile on Tuesday night as the 24 year old kept a clean sheet. Some players are due a rest and it is likely we see a return to the starting line up for midfielder Piris da Motta, and either Antonio Galeano or Braian Samudio in place of Claudio Aquino. Cerro have drawn both home games this season 1-1 but new signing Eduardo Brock should be available to shore up the defence.

Resistencia’s joy of a win over Ameliano was short lived as they crashed to a 4-0 defeat to Guaraní in another lacklustre performance. Miguel Zahzu desperately needs to organize the defence that has suffered when Brazilian centre back Ruan isn’t present. He had returned from suspension for the game against Guaraní only to be injured within 26 minutes. Up front Diego Martinez has been a constant starter but he only has one goal and now faces the best defence from 2022, Argentinian signing Nelson Da Silva has yet to impress in over 100 minutes so far.

Cerro Porteño won all four meetings to nil against Resistencia last season and everything points to a similar result based on current form and team strength. The home side will make changes but that shouldn’t affect their chances with so much strength, especially in attack. Resistencia have only scored once against 11 men so far this season with two of the three goals against Ameliano coming after an opponent was sent off.