Newcastle United will take the pitch in Algarve, Portugal with a chance to win the Tropheu Guadiana - if they win, they win. Reports are that Steve Harper will get the time in goal (hopefully this well and truly signals the end of the Rob Elliot experiment) and they also look set to give time to first Fabricio Coloccini, Jonas, Cheik Tiote (hey, here's an idea. While you're playing around with personnel groups, Alan, why not give about 45 minutes of Cheik and Bigi in the middle?) and Demba Ba. I suspect we'll also see some Sylvain Marveaux with the team playing it's second game in 24 hours.

Sporting Braga finished 3rd in the Portuguese League last year (bonus points if you can name the teams who finished ahead of them... it's a pretty easy guess) and made it through the group stages of the Europa Cup last season before bowing out to Besiktas, so they should provide a stern test for the Magpies to conclude the Portugal leg of their preseason training.

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