Chelsea vs Benfica Prediction: Blues to concede but win

Chelsea host Benfica in the second game of the Champions League 2025-26 season, with a kick-off time of 20:00 on Tuesday night, live on TNT Sports.  

Jamie Pacheco talks you through the Chelsea vs Benfica team news, form and his one bet ahead of this one, a 15/8 shot made up of the hosts winning the game but conceding in the process.

Chelsea

Chelsea were well beaten in Munich a couple of weeks ago, not for the first time falling victim to a couple of Harry Kane goals in losing 3-1.

So not the best start but then again, they’re not playing Bayern away in this competition every week.

On the domestic front, it’s been something of a mixed bag with two wins, two draws and two defeats. The last loss came at home to Brighton on Saturday, losing 3-1 after being 1-0 up, though they did have a man sent off for the second consecutive league match.

Moises Caicedo has been in super form in the heart of midfield, while Joao Pedro has been impressive upfront. But they’re never quite the same team when Cole Palmer is out of form or injured. Right, now he’s injured for three weeks.

Benfica

The last time Benfica were in action in this competition, they were losing 3-2 after being 2-0 up at home, conceding the winner with five minutes to go. As if that wasn’t bad enough, the opposition who did a job on them was Qarabag. Yes, Qarabag of Azerbaijan.

Manager Bruno Lage didn’t hang around for very long to discuss what went wrong. That’s because he was duly sacked the same evening and this despite a pretty good start to the season that involved eliminating Nice and Fenerbahce to get to the Champions League and three wins from four in the league.

The whole thing seemed a bit harsh to me and sacking managers doesn’t come cheaply these days but clearly, it as seen as a disastrous result even this early on in the competition.

Lage was replaced by Jose Mourinho. Make of that what you will. Mourinho started off in the best possible way with a good 3-0 win away in the league, but they then only drew with Rio Ave, needlessly conceding late on. Sound familiar?

One of the positives for Benfica this season has been the form of Heorhii Suakov, a 23-year-old Ukrainian playmaker who is in loan from Shaktar Donetsk.

He scored in back-to-back games and looks a class act. Benfica secured a hard-fought 2-1 win over Gil Vicente on Friday night after going 1-0 down.

Football Odds

For Chelsea, Cole Palmer is set to be thrust back into the XI having come off the bench and scored at Brentford, with Brighton loanee Facundo Buonanotte likely to miss out. Marc Cucurella should come back in at left-back from the start, with Reece James set to replace Wesley Fofana at right-back after a strong start to the season. 

Liam Delap remains out of action with his hamstring problem so Joao Pedro will lead the line, while Alejandro Garnacho could be given his first start on the wing since joining from Manchester United. Having missed the 2-2 draw at Brentford, fellow wide man Estevao looks to be fit to return, having posted pictures of himself back in training on Instagram. 

Today's Football Fixtures

Chelsea vs Benfica Odds

Chelsea are 4/7 here, which is implied probability of 63.6%. The draw is 3/1 (25%) and Benfica a whole point bigger at 4/1, or 20%.

The past results don’t paint a pretty picture for Benfica fans. Back in 2011/12 Chelsea beat them home and away (2-1, 1-0) in the Champions League, then beat them 2-1 in the final of the 2012/13 Europa League and then 4-1 after extra time the recent FIFA Club World Championship, so they very much have the upper hand here.

A Mourinho masterclass? Personally, I think he lost his touch a long time ago but even if he hadn’t, I still think he’d need a bit more time with the team in order to come up with a good gameplan at Stamford Bridge. Benfica have it all to do.

1pt Back Chelsea to win and both teams to score @ 15/8

If that 4/7 doesn’t do it for you, then how about 15/8? The only (not so small) difference between the two is that with this one we’d also need Benfica to get on the scoresheet.

As we know, two of those four wins for Chelsea against Benfica in the past came via this method (the 4-1 win was 1-1 at full-time) so there’s some history on our side, there.

It’s now five in a row that Chelsea have conceded in and Benfica very rarely fail to get on the scoresheet themselves, so you can see why we like this selection.

Anytime Goalscorers

It’s with great regret that I’ll leave the 2/1 on Vangelis Pavlidis to score anytime alone. He’s been in fine form again, picking up where he left off from last season and already bagging six goals this campaign, including five in his last five.

The only reason I’m not backing him is that if Benfica fail to score, we’d then lose on both bets, so I don’t want to put all my eggs in one basket. But he’s a decent enough price.

Moises Cicedo has added some goals to his armoury and already has two for the season. The 15/2 he scores anytime here isn’t the worst price you’ll see across Champions League markets this midweek.

Jamie Pacheco Football P/L 2025 (Excludes 3-3-3 column):

• Points Staked: 5
• Points Returned: 8.25
• Current P/L: +1.25 

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