Benfica vs Sporting CP Prediction: BTTS and hosts to get the most corners the way forward

This is the match in terms of deciding who will win the 2024/25 Superliga title in Portugal and it’s fitting that it will be disputed by Lisbon’s two big rival clubs.

Portugal-based Jamie Pacheco doesn’t want to call the match winner as it really could go any way so a Bet Builder provides he best betting option of this mouth-watering clash for him.

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Benfica

If Benfica fail to win this league it’s certainly not as a result of their form over the past two months or so.

Since a shock defeat at Casa Pia in late January, they’ve won 13 of their last 14 league matches, the anomaly being a 2-2 draw at Arouca in mid-April, where a late goal by our old pal Vangelis Pavlidis looked to have won the match for them before a 90th minute equaliser from Weverson meant they had to share the spoils.

Had they won that and they’d be coming into this match very much in pole position to win the league title and knowing that avoiding defeat here would probably be enough to be crowned champions.

Still, it’s hard to be over-critical of a side who hasn’t lost in the league in over three months, also remembering that during that period they knocked out Juventus from the Champions League after winning 2-0 in Turin, beat Monaco over two legs and gave Barcelona a good run for their money in the next round.

They were left ruing too many missed chances in that first leg when they played against 10 men for 70 minutes or else it could have been them playing Inter this week rather than Barca.

But all in all this has been an excellent season for the returning Bruno Lage, who still has the Portuguese Cup final (also against Sporting) to look forward to.

Among the star performers of the season were left-back Alvaro Carreras, keeper Anatolii Trubin, Turkish attacking midfielders Orkun Kokcu and Kerem Arturkoglu, the aforementioned Pavlidis (and his 28 goals for the season) and veteran defender Nicolas Otamendi.

With all the money they made in the Champions league this season, they may actually be able to keep most of those for a change, rather than having to sell them.

Lage can pretty much field his best team here.

Likely XI: Trubin, Silva, Dahl, Otamendi, Araujo, Aursnes, Koku, Florentino, Di Maria, Pavlidis, Arturkoglu.

Sporting CP

Had Ruben Amorim stayed rather than moved to Old Trafford, they may have been six points clear by now and made another couple of rounds in the Champions League. We’ll never know.

What we do know is that a horror run under interim coach Joao Pereira that saw them suffer back-to-back defeats really cost them or else they’d practically already be celebrating in the Marques de Pombal, where the fans traditionally gather to celebrate the title whilst also goading their Lisbon rivals.

Coach Rui Borges has done a fine job in recovering from that poor spell under Pereira and the team is as organised and disciplined as they were under Amorim (some compliment) albeit not quite as potent in attack.

Not that the last bit has affected the goalscoring prowess of Swedish goal-machine Viktor Gyokeres who now has 52 goals for the club this season. With those numbers, it’s a given that he’ll be off in the summer with Arsenal and Manchester United his most likely destinations; so he’ll want to end his time with Sporting in style.

Like Benfica, Sporting can pretty much pick their best side here.

Likely XI: Silva, Inacio, Diomande, Quaresma, Debast, Catamo, Hjulmand, Morita, Trincao, Pote, Gyokeres.

Benfica vs Sporting CP Odds

Benfica are 21/20, implied probability of 46.5% with Sporting 21/10 (32%) and the draw 12/5 (29%). So…pretty much all as expected. Benfica are at home, have enjoyed sightly better results over the last two months and with Benfica’s greater popularity as a team, sheer weight of money will also have played its part in determining that the Eagles should go into this one as heavy(ish) favourites.

Results between these two at the Estadio da Luz have been a real mixed bag. Looking at the last five editions of this game at Benfica, the men in red won three of them (2-1, 4-3 and 2-1), drew one (2-2) and lost one (3-1) in 2021. However, a worrying stat for would-be Benfica backers is that looking at all matches (both home and away and including the Cups) Benfica have won just two of the last 10 when facing the side from Alvalade.

Then again, their stats weren’t great against Porto ahead of their away clash in early April and they went out and won that 4-1. There might be some money coming in for the Draw/Sporting option on the Double Chance market at 4/6 but this is a really hard market to call, so we won’t try to do it.

If you’re looking for one of the big names like Gyokeres, Trincao, Pavlidis or Di Maria to have a good scoring record in this fixture over the last few years as an angle, you’ll be disappointed. In Pavlidis’ case he can certainly be excused as he’s only ever played in this match once before and that was off the bench

The exception is Sporting wing-back Geny Catamo, who has seven goals for the season and remarkably scored all of SCP’s last three goals against Benfica in the league. It’s 12/1 he’s first goalscorer here and 4/1 that he scores at any stage. Gyokeres (6/5) is a slightly shorter price than rival Pavlidis (13/10) to score anytime.

Bet Builder - Benfica to get the most corners and both teams to score @ 6/4

In the absence of calling the match winner (or draw), the solution may lie in a good Bet Builder.

First up, Benfica have an excellent record when it comes to winning the corners battle, getting more than their opponents in 81% of their home matches and even more impressively, 87.5% of their away matches.

That includes ‘outcornering’ their opponents in all of their last five at home. Sporting’s corner stats are decent themselves but a 62% away record playing an 81% one means we think Benfica should get more. Something that has happened in three of the last five between these two at the Estadio da Luz with the other two games seeing a draw in the number of corners. So Benfica to get the most corners is our first port of call.

Our second is goals at both ends, which is a 4/7 chance. Eight of the last ten in all competitions home and away have seen both teams score and additionally, neither side has been particularly good at the back in recent weeks. See Sporting’s wins by 3-1 and 2-1 against Moreirense and Gil Vicente respectively. The double comes to 6/4.

Offers

Acca Flex: Place a pre-match 5+ leg Football accumulator and get a CASH bonus up to 100% if all of your selections win or your money back as CASH if one leg lets you down

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...