FC Minsk’s unbeaten start to this new Belarus top flight season was brought to an abrupt end last weekend when they were dealt a 2-0 defeat away from home at Energetyk-BGU, but this Saturday’s hosts return to their Stadion FK Minsk where they’ll be looking to exploit BATE’s slow start to this new campaign.
Early back-to-back wins over Belshina 3-1 away from home and a 3-2 home win over local rivals, Dinamo Minsk, had given FC Minsk the perfect start to this new season.
Although they tasted defeat last time out, FC Minsk have won their last 4 matches on the trot on home turf at their Stadion FK Minsk.
Victories over Tarpeda, Slutsk and Shakhtyor Soligorsk (towards the end of last season) together with the aforementioned win against Dinamo Minsk give the hosts a decent chance of not only getting something out of this upcoming clash but they could also take all three points too.
The bigger picture shows that FC Minsk have won 9 of their last 11 matches at home in the Vysshaya Liga and this includes a 3-2 win over BATE back in September of last year.
Onto BATE then, and the visitors avoided a third league defeat on the trot last weekend when they secured a valuable 1-0 home win against Rukh Brest at their Borisov Arena which would have come as a huge relief for manager, Kiryl Alshevskiy and his players.
BATE will now be keen to build upon last week’s result as they prepare for the visit to Minsk although early back-to-back defeats away from home at Energetyk-BGU and Slavia Mozyr in 3-1 and 2-1 losses respectively perhaps suggest the visitors may not get things all their own way here.
The visitors have made a slow start to this new Belarus top flight campaign and the early indications suggest they may face a tougher challenge of going one step better this season in terms of winning the Vysshaya Liga title after finishing runners-up at the end of last term.
In addition, FC Minsk have won two of the last three encounters at home against BATE winning 3-2 and 1-0 either side of a 2-0 win by BATE in-between times, so the hosts may well fancy their chances here.