Nice vs Benfica Prediction: ‘Unders’ the play with hosts in control

Benfica host Nice at the Stadium of Light on Tuesday evening, kick off 20:00, with a 2-0 lead from the first leg.  

Jamie Pacheco thinks that advantage could mean Benfica are happy to keep things tight in the second leg, meaning goals could be at a premium as he takes us through his match preview and Benfica vs Nice Prediction...   

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

Benfica 

Benfica were decent value for their first leg win, trumping Nice on just about every metric such as possession, shots on target and in particular, expected goals.  

Of course, they won in the only metric that actually matters with new boy Franjo Ivanovic scoring a with a neat finish from close range and substitute Florentino adding a second with a long-range effort. Florentino is rumoured to be leaving with Jose Mourinho's Fenerbahçe thought to be interested but in the absence of any concrete offers, should feature here again.  

But the player Mourinho really wants is Benfica's Turkish winger Kerem Arturkoglu, who despite an impressive first season in Lisbon, scoring 16 goals and assisting 13, doesn't seem too keen on staying for another year.  

Benfica may have been more prepared to sell, at least doubling their investment, were it not that January transfer window signing Bruma, who plays on the left side of attack like Arturkoglu does, is a long-term absentee with injury.  A sale would leave Benfica with little or no cover on the left for the foreseeable future, although that would change if they bought Feyenoord's Anis Hadji Moussa.     

In an intriguing sub-plot, if Benfica, as expected, were to get through against Nice, they'd play the winner of Fenerbahçe v Feyenoord (first leg ended 2-1 to the Dutch) in the next round. They certainly wouldn't be keen on selling Arturkoglu to Mourinho's men if they were to play them, while it may also affect their own pursuits of Moussa if they played Feyenoord.  

The Portuguese Superliga very helpfully allowed Benfica to skip league duty this weekend to prepare for this one.  

Nice 

Speaking of transfers, Nice chose a strange time to sell their key asset, Evaan Guessand. Their top scorer from last season was sold to Aston Villa for 26 million pounds two days after the first leg was played and was left out of the squad in in order for there not to be any last-minute barriers to the transfer going through.  

Sure, that's a lot of money for a club like Nice but the timing of it left them in a desperate situation and it showed. Nice failed to create much at all in that first leg with Isak Jansson and Terem Moffi not able to link up effectively.  

Like Benfica, Nice won't be in action this weekend for the simple reason that Ligue 1 only starts next week.    

Whether they'd be better for the run out with a game at the weekend is debatable, but they have a real mountain to climb here.  

Benfica vs Nice Odds

Benfica are just 8/15 for this one, which is implied probability of 65.2%. The draw is 10/3, or 23% and the Nice win is 4/1, or 20%.  

Last week I was right about Benfica winning the match, but I was just wrong about Nice not scoring one in the process.  

And if they won that first leg comfortably, you'd think this one would be even more straightforward. But that's not the sort of price I like tipping at and then there's the fact Benfica don't need to win. Are they going to be busting a gut if it's 0-0 at 80 minutes? Probably not.   

Over/Under 2.5 Goals  

What was just said about the match winner market, may have plenty of relevance to the over/under 2.5 goals market where 'overs' is a strong 4/7 favourite. Personally, I'd make it evens the pair and even then, I'd favour 'unders' is those were the prices.  

Benfica have kept consecutive clean sheets so far this season - against Sporting in the Super Cup and Nice last week - and it helps that four of their back five were already there last season, so another could well be on the cards against this Nice attack having to cope with life after Guessand.  

My instinct is Benfica will approach this very pragmatically, relying on keeping possession to progress in the tie rather than going in search of goals. 1-0 would be my idea of a scoreline with 0-0 a lively runner too so unders obviously covers both those eventualities, plus a few others.  

Anytime Goalscorers  

If you disagree and think there might be goals here, Vangelis Pavilidis and Ivanovic are 11/10 and 13/10 respectively to score, with A Schjederlup 21/10 and new signing Richard Rios 16/5. For Nice, Moffi is the shortest price of anyone in the side for a goal at 11/4.  

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...