Dynamo Brest vs. Neman Grodno – Belarusian Premier League, November 28, 2020

The Belarusian Premier League season draws to a close this Saturday and there are still some very important questions to be answered – including who will win the league and who will qualify for European competition next season.

Neither of Dynamo Brest or Neman Grodno can take the title now. But they both have a shot of qualifying for the new European Conference League scheduled to begin in 2021.

MyBookie makes Dynamo Brest the favorite to win this game and give itself a great chance of finishing in third. With so much riding on the result, the odds for the draw might be of interest. Neman has recovered from a recent poorly timed drop in form to go into this game knowing a win would see the club qualifying for Europe.

After running away with the league last season, Dynamo Brest took far too long to get going this season and has never really looked like repeating its title win. But a second half resurgence did see Dynamo climb quickly up the table and it was only two games without a win at the start of the month that puts it in an inferior position to Neman now.

Four goals in the second half gave Dynamo the win at Gorodeya last weekend and kept up the club’s remarkable record of scoring in every league game since the start of August. Momentum would seem to be on Dynamo’s side – and home field advantage could also play a part.

But it is Neman that holds the upper hand going into this fixture. The Grodno club has held onto a top three position for the majority of the season and would be desperately unlucky to fall away right at the end. Two poor performances against Slavia Mozyr and Gorodeya, that both ended in defeat, almost saw Neman throw a chance of European qualification away. But it is back in its own hands now.

Two relatively easy games against Smolevichi and Slutsk preceded this fixture. Neman almost made things much harder for itself by narrowly beating Slutsk but those six points could prove to be invaluable after the weekend. This will be a close game but Neman will need to keep out a free-scoring Dynamo forward line.

It all comes down to this weekend for these two sides. Neman needs to hold on for just one more game to qualify for Europe and keep Dynamo Brest from salvaging a season that looked as though it would end up being very disappointing just a few months ago. I expect Dynamo to go for the win right from the start, but Neman to keep the host out just long enough to take a point.