Juventus vs Benfica Prediction: Two anytime scorer bets worth backing

It’s all or nothing for Benfica in Turin knowing that they’ll need a point to make the next round and that defeat will signal the end of their Champions League campaign.  This Wednesday night clash will be streamed on Discovery+ from 20:00.

Jamie Pacheco thinks that with Benfica having to go for it, they should be good for at least one goal and has picked two players at decent prices to get one as he previews the action and gives us his Benfica vs Juventus Predictions...

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

Juventus 

It's been a decent campaign so far for a Juve side who are no longer the European giants of yesteryear and are down in fifth in Serie A. 

In seventeenth place, they're guaranteed a place in the Playoffs as an unseeded team but a point or better could well be enough to get them into the next round as a seeded team, though making the Top 8 and qualifying directly for the Lat 16 is going to be pretty hard, even if they do win.  

Their campaign has actually been more impressive than their position suggests, given they've lost just one of their seven so far, winning three and drawing three, the last of which was a goalless stalemate at Brugge last week. 

Despite taking a 1-0 lead at Napoli at the weekend, they went on top lose 2-1 but they certainly had this game in mind on Saturday, also remembering that Napoli are the Serie A leaders.  

Possible XI:  Di Gregorio, Gatti, Kalulu, Cambiaso, Savona, Locatelli, Koopmeiners, Gonzalez, Weah, Douglas Luiz, Thuram.  

Benfica 

Benfica will be wondering how they didn't get anything from their match against Barcelona last week after being 3-1 and 4-2 up only to see two spirited comebacks in what was surely the game of the Champions League season so far, Barcelona eventually winning it 5-4.  

Just to give you an idea of the sort of game it was, in the last minute of injury time at 4-4 Benfica had a strong penalty shout, the ball was cleared and Raphinha ran the full length of the pitch and scored but there was a delay to see whether the penalty would be given to Benfica, who would probably have scored to win the game.  

Or not, in which case Barcelona would steal it at the death. The penalty wasn't given, and Benfica were left wondering what exactly had just happened. So were we, because we had the draw at 3/1 and can feel just as robbed as the Eagles can, given it was drawn with just a few seconds of injury time left on the clock.  

The consequence is that they need a point to make the Play-offs as an unseeded team. Thery'll be pretty happy with that but given their excellent start to the Champions League season, they'll be thinking they should have done even better.  

They should certainly have done better at the weekend. Despite fielding a strong side, they lost 3-1 at Casa Pia to seriously dent their chance of winning the league. If they don't get a point here, this will have been a hugely damaging week for them.  

Possible XI: Trubin, Bah, Otamendi, Araujo, Carreras, Aursnes, Florentino, Kocku, Pavlidis, Di Maria, Schjelderup.   

Juventus vs Benfica Odds

Juventus are 6/5, implied probability of 45.5%. Benfica are 2/1 (33.3%) with the draw 11/5, which is 31.3%.  

It's hard to make a case for Benfica given they've managed just one point from their last two games in the competition and the fact that Juve have lost just once in seven. That weekend defeat doesn't inspire us with much confidence, either.  

The Juve win is of some interest. They'll want to get three points to make sure they at least give themselves a chance of being as high up the table as they can and see where they are after everyone else has played. Would-be Juve backers should however be aware that they lost at home to Stuttgart back in October.  

With none of the prices worthy of or money, we'll leave this market alone.   

Anytime Goalscorers  

Here's what we do know, though. Benfica will need at least a point to have any chance of progressing and assuming it's not going to end 0-0, they're going to have to score at least once if they're going to reach their objective.  

They've scored in five of their seven matches to date and 14 in total after those four against Barca improved their goals tally, so this is a side with goals in them. And they'll certainly be far more adventurous than in that insipid display against Bayern before Christmas.  

It makes sense to pick two goalscorers, so that one of them scoring leaves us in profit.  

Vangelis Pavlidis (21/10) took his time to get going in this competition, but a hat-trick last week means he has four in the CL and as the main striker, is a good starting point.  

Di Maria (100/30) has only scored once in this competition but he's a man for the big occasions, knows this stadium well from a season at Juventus and will be on penalty duty, so he's also a good option at the prices.  

Team with most Booking Points  

We fancied Benfica to get the most bookings points against Barcelona because they had far more going into the match, only for the Catalans to get four and Benfica just one, though substitute Artur Cabral got a straight red on the bench.  

Following the same rationale – Benfica have 17 yellows and a red and Juve have 11 yellows and two reds – you could just about make a case for Benfica to win this heat. But it may be a case of 'once bitten twice shy', so we'll just stick with the goalscorers.  

Wednesday's Champions League Predictions:

The team here at Betfred Insights have you fully-covered for the final round of Champions League matches this Wednesday. You can check out all of our previews for the matches below:

Aston Villa vs Celtic Prediction: Hosts to win but no clean sheet
Barcelona vs Atalanta Prediction: Expect goals, goals, goals in the Catalan capital
Bayer Leverkusen vs Sparta Prague Prediction: Wirtz can secure qualification
Bayern Munich vs Slovan Bratislava Prediction: Kim to cash in for Kompany’s corner kings
Borussia Dortmund vs Shakhtar Donetsk Prediction: Hosts may have to dig in against the Miners
Brest vs Real Madrid Prediction: Mbappe can score for sixth straight match at Brest
Dinamo Zagreb vs AC Milan Prediction: Rossoneri to get the job done
Girona vs Arsenal Prediction: Gunners to keep another clean sheet
Inter Milan vs Monaco Prediction: Hosts to secure knockout place
Lille vs Feyenoord Prediction: Canadian to catch visitors cold in France
Manchester City vs Club Brugge: Citizens to dig deep for the result they need
PSV vs Liverpool Prediction: Hosts to overcome booking points handicap in Eindhoven
Red Bull Salzburg vs Atletico Madrid Prediction: Alvarez to come up with another goal
Sporting CP vs Bologna Prediction: Italians can halt Sporting’s Play-off progress
Sturm Graz vs RB Leipzig Prediction: Sesko can score in dead rubber
Stuttgart vs PSG Prediction: Barcola to rise to occasion again
Young Boys vs Red Star Belgrade Prediction: Red Star can sign off with a win

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...