St Gallen vs Benfica Prediction: Potent Pavlidis to make his mark in Switzerland

Benfica's 2026/27 European adventure commences on Thursday as they travel to St Gallen for the first leg of their UEFA Europa League second qualifying round tie (8pm local time/7pm BST).

Jose Mourinho led the Portuguese club to the play-offs of the Champions League knockout stage last term, so new boss Marco Silva will be charged with at least getting the Lisbon outfit through to the UEL league phase. Below you can check out my St Gallen vs Benfica predictions, accompanied by the latest team news and match odds.

Team News

Ghana international Lawrence Ati-Zigi will feature between the posts for St Gallen, but the hosts have two injuries to cope with. Behar Neziri (ACL) is a long-term absentee, while Nino Weibel (knee) is a doubt to feature on Thursday.

Benfica have already been busy in the summer transfer window. They've added six new players to their squad including Clement Lenglet (on loan from Atletico Madrid) and Jakub Kaminski (Koln). Both look set to be involved in this first leg.

Jhon Duran has just joined on loan from Al-Nassr but it remains to be seen if the Colombian will be fit enough to play on Thursday.

Gianluca Prestianni is unavailable due to suspension, while Bruma remains sidelined with a muscle injury.

Antonio Silva looks to be getting closer to a move to AFC Bournemouth in the Premier League, so it's unclear whether he'll be named in the squad here.

St Gallen vs Benfica Odds

Given their lack of European pedigree in comparison to the visitors, Betfred has St Gallen priced at 7/1 to triumph in this first leg.

Benfica are the clear favourites at 2/7, while the draw is on offer at 4/1.

The away side's two pre-season friendlies have both gone Under 3.5 Goals, which can be backed at 4/7.

Handicap -1: Benfica -1 @ 5/6

St Gallen may be further ahead in their pre-season preparations, but I don't see them being able to match Benfica's squad, even though it's not going to be at full strength.

Still, Silva has some very talented individuals at his disposal, who are well-seasoned on the European stage. I think they will show their might in this away leg and take control of the tie. I fancy them to prevail with a -1 handicap at 5/6, which has an implied probability of 54.5%.

In case you're unfamiliar with how this market works, it would hand St Gallen a hypothetical 1-0 lead. So Benfica would need to win by two clear goals for the bet to be settled as a winner.

Player To Score (Sub Switch): Vangelis Pavlidis @ 4/6

With two goals in pre-season, Pavlidis is looking sharp ahead of the new campaign. The arrival of Duran will threaten Pavlidis' position, but if he maintains his form, he shouldn't have too much to worry about. The centre-forward role is Pavlidis' to lose.

I'm expecting a big performance from the Greek front man on Thursday, and by using Betfred's Sub Switch market, I'm backing him to score in Switzerland on Thursday.

Betfred's Sub Switch rolls your bet on to the oncoming substitute, so you stay in the game, even when your player doesn’t.