Two weekends of rivalry matches begin in the MLS in the early hours of Sunday morning and one such match sees Atlanta United meeting Charlotte FC for the second time this season, after the former MLS Cup champions won 3-0 in Charlotte earlier in the campaign.

Atlanta were at their very best on that afternoon and have the potential to do some damage in this match too. Generally Atlanta are a good team on their own patch and only Toronto FC have left Georgia with a point this term.

Charlotte do at least make the trip to the Mercedes-Benz Stadium off the back of a win over New York City FC last week in a match where they delivered their best showing of the season.

They backed that up with a win in the US Open Cup in midweek and suddenly after a sluggish start to the season they now have four wins in their last five in all competitions.

That slow start should be attributed to exceptional circumstances after the passing of their player Anton Walkes in pre-season. Any team would need time to recover from such a loss so we should cut Charlotte some slack.

Charlotte do have a problem here though in that they are missing a bunch of centre-backs and are either going to need to utilise full-backs or midfielders at the heart of their defence, something which is less than ideal when going to Atlanta.

There is a chance that Atlanta could have number nine Giorgos Giakoumakis back from injury for this one and he is lethal in and around the penalty box and will be ready to take advantage of this weakened Charlotte back line.

We saw enough from Charlotte last week to believe they can be a threat going forward in this one though, even without DP forward Enzo Copetti, so over 2.5 goals appeals in what could turn out to be another end-to-end battle at this stadium.

Away from the rivalry matches, two Eastern Conference sides meet in the early hours of Sunday morning when the much-fancied Columbus Crew take on an Orlando City SC side, who despite a solid start to the season feel like they are underachieving a touch.

That is largely down to the expectation placed on them after their US Open Cup success last term and a decent showing in the Champions League earlier in this campaign, plus a couple of appealing signings made to boost their squad.

Columbus Crew come into this one off the back of their bye week, which probably came at the right time after successive MLS defeats. That will have given Wilfried Nancy time to take stock and get some more training into his side as he continues to develop them into the energetic, entertaining style he is renowned for.

Columbus were unbeaten at home until Inter Miami turned up a couple of weeks ago. They exposed the Crew defensively and Orlando definitely have the players to do that, but this Columbus attack is deep in numbers and quality and another week on the training field might only make them even more relentless.

Matches between these two tend to be high scoring. Two seasons ago both fixtures ended 3-2 and Orlando won one of their matches 2-1 last season. With the attacking talent on the field here I think both teams to score looks good. It has landed in all but one Orlando away game and three of five Columbus home games so I’ll take BTTS.

Two teams in the Western Conference meet in the early hours of Sunday morning when Real Salt Lake welcome the champions Los Angeles FC to Rio Tinto for what should be an entertaining tear up.

Los Angeles FC saw their unbeaten start to MLS 2023 go up in smoke at Levi’s Stadium last week when they went down to the San Jose Earthquakes, but they bounced back with a win in the US Open Cup in midweek when they made wholesale changes with bigger fish to fry on the horizon.

Real Salt Lake had big issues earlier in the campaign, losing four of their last five matches and shipping 13 goals in that time. In the five matches since then Salt Lake have only lost one match and found the net on seven occasions as opposed to the three of the opening half of the season.

LAFC have had no problems scoring all season. Denis Bouanga has been a revelation while Carlos Vela remains high class at this level. Los Angeles have scored 17 goals in their nine MLS matches and just look a fluent, confident team.

Confidence is definitely building within Real Salt Lake though and so I expect a relatively high scoring match here. LAFC are so good that if they fancy the job they can cover a 2.5 goal line any time they like but the signs are that things are clicking in front of goal more often for RSL despite successive 0-0 draws coming in.

Eight of the 12 MLS matches between these two teams have had over 2.5 goals in them. Three of the four which didn’t had two goals so this is a fixture that ignites whenever they meet and with RSL matches averaging 2.7 goals per game this season and 2.78 per game when LAFC are involved, I like the over here.

Vitesse are still after those final points to get them over the line in terms of Eredivisie safety, and this Sunday morning fixture against Cambuur could be the place to get them. Meanwhile, Cambuur are now officially relegated, having gone down with a whimper following a 0-3 loss to Utrecht.

Vitesse won two crucial games this time last month to look relatively safe, and despite some wobbly form since then, I think this is a good bet for a home win. Even in last week’s 2-0 defeat to Fortuna Sittard, the players put in a solid performance. Although Phillip Cocu’s men didn’t take their chances, they had around two-thirds of the possession. Their players have better quality, but there is work to do for next season if they want to be back amongst the top half.

Cambuur have lost their last seven, and they haven’t scored in any of their last four. It is little wonder they have struggled this much when their players are either certain to leave the club in the summer, their confidence is shot, or they simply aren’t good enough for this level.

I am backing a bet of under 3.5 goals here because six of their last seven games had less than four goals in, and I can see Cocu setting his side up to be controlling of the game and confident that they can grind out three points – that’s all that is needed. Vitesse are under no  pressure to score three or four.

Sunday’s Serie A action kicks off at Verona’s Stadio Marc’Antonio Bentegodi as the Gialloblu will no doubt look to take a significant step toward securing their top-flight status for another year, having just climbed out of the bottom three in the last week. Mid-table Torino are their visitors in this Sunday morning clash.

Ivan Juric’s Toro will have their sights set on a top-half finish – currently 12th on 46 points but level on points with eighth-placed Fiorentina, but motivation for the survival chasers will undeniably be on another level at the Bentegodi, and Verona will be pushed on by a vocal support.

Verona have scored now in three of their last four games, and in their last seven they’ve only failed to net against Inter, Napoli and Juventus – always capable of finding a way past inferior opponents than those chasing Champions League qualification. Sassuolo, Bologna, Cremonese and Lecce have all conceded to the Mastini, and the Neroverdi, Rossoblu and Giallorossi all lost.

Knowing that Atalanta and AC Milan are two of their three fixtures after this one and before the end of the season, expect Verona to come out on the front foot on Sunday. Toro, then, will be happy to sit in and look to launch counter-attacks when they can.