Benfica vs Barcelona Prediction: Why we should get at least four goals in Lisbon

Benfica host Barcelona for the first leg of their Last 16 clash on Wednesday night at 20:00 with live broadcast on TNT Sports 3. 

Portugal-based Jamie Pacheco thinks goals are in the air and in addition to backing over 3.5 of them, also has two goalscorer picks as he takes us through his Benfica vs Barcelona Predictions...

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

Benfica 

Whatever happens from hereon, Benfica can be pretty happy with their work in this competition. At one point, they looked like they may go out in the Group Stages but that win over Juventus and victory over two legs against Monaco in the Play-Offs means there's plenty of extra money in the bank and also plenty of goodwill among the fans after a slow start to the season.  

The 3-3 draw against Monaco that secured qualification to this round was an absolute classic with Benfica needing a late equaliser courtesy of O Kokcu to avoid extra-time.  

And they're on some run at the moment. That 3-3 was the only match in their last eight in all competitions that they haven't won and also the only game in the last five where they've conceded. They didn't play at the weekend, with their game against Gil Vicente re-arranged for March 28.  

On the downside, Angel di Maria is the headline absence through injury but Alexander Bah, Manu Silva and Renato Sanches are also out.   

Likely XI: Trubin, Araujo, Otamendi, Silva, Carreras, Aursnes, Barreiro, Kocku, Pavlidis, Schjelderup, Arturkoglu.     

Barcelona  

Barcelona are flying at the moment in La Liga. They went top of the table at the weekend with a big 4-0 win over Real Sociedad, their sixth league win in a row.  

They've been scoring goals for fun this season with 124 in 40 matches in all competitions. Raphinha is having his best scoring season by a country mile with 24 so far and yet that isn't enough for him to be the team's top scorer, with that honour falling to Robert Lewandowski, who has 34.  

Ansu Fatti missed the weekend match with illness but hasn't been playing much anyway, while Andreas Christensen, Marc Bernal and Marc-Andre   

Likely XI: Szcezny, Cubarsi, Araujo, Kounde, Martin, Pedri, De Jong, Gavi, Yamal, Raphinha, Lewandowski.  

Benfica vs Barcelona Odds (Please click for full betfred.com match markets)

Benfica are 3/1, implied probability 25%. It's 5/6 Barcelona (55%) and 16/5 the draw (24%). 

The first thing to remember is that Barcelona beat Benfica in Lisbon in the Group Stages 4-3 in yet another extraordinary match.  

But it's also worth remembering that Barcelona's goal came in the last minute of injury time and that Benfica could well have had a penalty 10 seconds or so before Raphinha ran the length of the pitch to score. So things could have ended up very differently.   

Both sides come into this match in excellent form but it's hard to argue that Barca aren't the better side. So the prices look about right.   

Over 3.5 Goals  

If the final outcome isn't so easy to predict, one thing we should get here is goals.  

We've already talked about Barca's scoring record for the season and to that we can add that they've scored 35 in their last 10.  

Benfica have certainly been no slouches, either. They scored exactly three goals in four of their last six matches, including that Monaco draw, and last time out against Boavista, winning 3-0.  

Let's not forget about the 4-3 between them earlier in the season, too.   

Both teams to score (2/5) and over 2.5 goals (2/5) look nailed-on but I think it's worth pushing the boat out a bit on this one and going for an extra goal, with over 3.5 goals available at evens.  

Anytime Goalscorers  

We're going to go with two anytime goalscorers here. It's worth explaining that this isn't a case of putting all our eggs in one basket because we might not get the four goals we need but we may have one or both of our picks scoring anyway. Or we might get four or more goals AND one or both scoring. You get the picture. 

Raphinha (11/8) is the first of our picks.  Admittedly he hasn't been in the best scoring form over the last three weeks or so but as we said already, he has 24 for the season and has good memories of playing here, scoring twice in that 4-3.  

The other is that man Vangelis Pavlidis at 8/5. He has 15 for the season, has netted in six of his last seven and got a hat-trick in that earlier game against this lot. If you're a regular reader of my columns, you'll know what's coming next: the absence of Di Maria means he'll be on penalty duty, which could make all the difference.  

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...