Monaco vs Benfica Prediction: Back Vangelis to keep on scoring

Benfica travel to Monaco for the first leg of their Playoffs on Wednesday night at 20:00 with live broadcast on TNT Sports 4. 

Jamie Pacheco has two Benfica goalscorer bets at 8/5 and 12/1 who he thinks can help Benfica secure a positive result in this first leg. You can check out his Monaco vs Benfica Predictions below...

*You can check out all of the Football Odds we offer over at betfred.com

Monaco 

Monaco finished 17th in the Champions League table and could have been seeded themselves if they'd have got something from their final match rather than losing 3-0 at Inter. But at least they'd put themselves in a position where they didn't need a point to go through.  

They were well beaten by PSG on Friday but that's no surprise given how PSG are going at the moment.  

Monaco are doing ok on the domestic front and currently in fourth but Benfica will be a bigger challenge to what they face most weeks in Ligue 1.  

C Mawissa is suspended after a 12th-minute red card away at Inter, which helps explain that heavy defeat.  

Likely XI: Majecki, Vanderson, Kehrer, Henrique, Salisu, Zakaria, Golovin, Akliouche, Camara, Minamino, Embolo.  

Benfica 

An excellent 2-0 win over Juventus away last time out was more than enough for Benfica to qualify for the Playoffs and they did so as the last of the seeded teams in 16th place.   

Their win was also good news for us because we had two potential Benfica scorers and Vangelis Pavlidis at 21/10 was one of them and opened the scoring on the night to deliver us a decent profit for the match. The Greek striker is certainly in our good books at the moment because his goal at home to Moreirense at the weekend (he scored two as it happens) was one of the three selections in our winning weekend 3-3-3 column.   

It was the second week in a row where Benfica have made a bit of a meal of winning a relatively easy-looking match on paper,  winning 3-2, although the scoreline doesn't tell you that they were actually 3-1 up with five minutes to go so it was a bit more comfortable than it actually seems at first sight. The previous week they also beat Estrela 3-2. So good that they're getting the job done but their defence is looking a bit shaky at the moment.  

January signing Manu and right-back Alexnader Bah both sustained injuries at the weekend so will play no part here. Worse still is the possible absence of Angel di Maria who didn't feature on Saturday so he may have to settle for a place on the bench.  

Likely XI: Trubin, Araujo, Otamendi, Silva, Carreras, Aursnes, Florentino, Kocku, Pavlidis, Di Maria/Schjelderup, Arturkoglu.     

Monaco vs Benfica Odds

Monaco are 13/10, implied probability of 43.5%, Benfica are 2/1 (33%) with the draw 13/5 (27.8%).  

These two played each other in the Group Stage with Benfica running out 3-2 winners thanks to a late goal by Zeki Amdouni back in late November so they'll be feeling confident about avoiding defeat in the first leg and just needing a win by a single goal to go through. But they'll cross that bridge when they come to it.  

Benfica or draw on the double chance market at 8/13 therefore rates a decent wager but we can do better than that.   

Anytime Goalscorers  

Picking Benfica goalscorers has been a good route to success all season across several of my betting columns and there are good reasons for that. Not only do they tend to score quite a few goals anyway but with a couple of notable exceptions, it is generally the same players who get them, so it's not actually that hard to pick the men who might be among the goals.  

And we go to the well again with Pavlidis, not just because he's in our good books as explained already but because his form really is that good right now with six in his last five. I mentioned in the 3-3-3 column that he'd be on penalty duty if Di Maria didn't play and sure enough, they got a penalty and Pavlidis took it, and scored for the first of his two goals. The same could well happen again. Pavlidis is a very fair 8/5 to score again.  

A far more surprising scorer in the last two matches was skipper Nicolas Otamendi, scoring at both Estrela and at home to Moreirense, both from corners.  Those were admittedly two of just the three goals he scored this season but he's clearly a danger from set-pieces and he fancies his chances of getting on the end of one. This is obviously a more speculative bet but he's worth half a point at 12/1 given we think Benfica could well be good for two goals here.  

Jamie Pacheco predominantly covers Cricket and European Football for us at Betfred Insights. You can check out his Football Betting Tips, along with those from the rest of the team, at our Football hub page...