Benfica and Club Brugge will battle it out once again this week for a place in the quarter-finals of the UEFA Champions League.
Benfica Form GuideThis season, up to this point, has been one of Benfica’s finest in quite some time. They look sharp, they have a great squad, and they’re putting out some high quality results every single week. Following on from their performances in the UCL, too, they’ll fancy themselves as outsiders to run alongside their bid for another Primeira Liga crown.
Benfica have been winning games like it’s going out of fashion lately. To kickstart February they rattled off victories over Casa Pia AC, Club Brugge in the first leg (2-0), Boavista and Vizela. Then, in March, they kept the trend going by easing past Famalicao.
Club Brugge Form GuideThis Champions League campaign has been an incredible success for Club Brugge, and that’s before they even get started with the second leg. With that being said, they’re over 20 points off the pace in the Belgian Pro League title race. The UCL is one of their main priorities and despite their shortcomings, we expect them to give as good as they get tomorrow night.
You could certainly argue that Brugge could’ve been in better form heading into this one. They were beaten 2-0 by Benfica in the first leg just a few weeks back and last weekend, they lost 3-0 to KV Oostende. Outside of that they did beat Gent 2-0, to run alongside three draws against Antwerp, Union Saint-Gilloise and Cercle Brugge.
Latest Team NewsThere are a few key absentees here for Benfica with Ristic, Chiquinho, Draxler and Guedes all being out of action.
Skov Olsen and Hendry are injured but aside from that, Brugge have a fully fit squad to choose from.
Match PredictionBrugge would be best suited to this being a second leg tie at their own place because with the noise generated by Benfica fans, it’ll be difficult for them to build any kind of momentum or atmosphere. As such, we’re going to predict a draw, essentially sending Benfica through on aggregate.
