The Belarusian League will start matchday 10 in midweek - with its biggest game already taking place on Wednesday.
2019 champions Dynamo Brest will play current leaders and last year’s runner-ups - BATE Borisov.
The game will take place in mid-week, due to the fact that the two teams square off in the Belarusian Cup final in Minsk on Sunday.
Dynamo Brest v BATE Borisov (20.5.2020, 18:00 CET)
Although historically this match-up does not contain any out of the ordinary heat between the sets of supporters, in recent years this duel has created an on-pitch rivalry - on one side, the eternal champions BATE Borisov, and on the other side the team that dethroned them in 2019, Dynamo Brest.
A one-time fluke? Not really. Dinamo has eliminated BATE in the 2017 and 2018 cup tournaments (including a dramatic final in the latter), as well as in the 2018 and 2019 Supercups. Their first-ever league title in 2019 was the icing on the cake of these great years, but BATE aren’t done by a long shot.
The Yellow-Blues from Borisov are in great form in recent weeks, winning four games on the trot. After a shaky start to the season, in their standards, they are back on top of the league. Their opponents, on the other hand, only sit at seventh place. However, only six points separate the two - which means anything i still up for grabs.
BATE’s attack has started to produce some numbers, and the main danger for Brest is the great threat diversity - 9 players have scored the team’s 19 goals, with no less than 4 players contributing 3 goals each. One of those is Pavel Nekhajchik, who joined BATE this summer from Dinamo Brest, after being a key factor in last year’s title.
In Dynamo we can find the former Dynamo Kiev legend Artem Milevskiy, who will try and add to his rather shy goal-scoring tally of two this season. Another former Kiev player, defender Yevhen Khacheridi, is still suspended after his April 18th red card against Vitebsk.
It will be interesting to see if and how the teams will rotate with the cup final in their mind, as both games have huge significance for both. For BATE, it is a chance to avenge the torrid few years endured by Brest - who might still believe they have the psychological advantage.
