Borussia Dortmund travel to Portugal to face Benfica at Estadio da Luz on Tuesday in the first leg of their Champions League clash. The two sides have never met before in an European competition. Benfica have qualified from Group B, where they finished second behind Napoli with 2 wins, 2 draws and 2 losses. Borussia Dortmund have not lost a single match in the group stage, finishing top of Group F ahead of mighty Real Madrid.
Benfica are leading the table in the Portuguese top flight, but they have a fierce title battle to fight against bitter rivals FC Porto. They have won the last two league matches by the same scoreline, 3-0, but the opponents are not even near the quality of Dortmund. Andrija Zivkovic is suspended for this match, while Alex Grimaldo and Andre Horta are both injured. Eduardo Salvio might recover in time for Tuesday's match.
Borussia Dortmund had an almost perfect Champions League campaign so far, but their Bundesliga form has been far from what they would have wanted. Last weekend they lost 2-1 at Darmstadt, a result which leaves them in fourth place and a whole 15 points behind leaders Bayern Munich. Marcel Schmelzer and Lukasz Piszczek are fitness doubts, while Mario Gotze, Nuri Sahin, Sven Bender and Sebastian Rode will definitely miss out.
Probable line-ups:
Benfica: Moraes - Nelsihno, Luisao, Lindelof, Almeida - Salvio, Fejsa, Pizzi, Cervi - Mitroglou, Jonas
Dortmund: Burki - Ginter, Sokratis, Bartra, Guerreiro - Weigl - Pulisic, Dembele, Castro, Reus - Aubameyang
My prediction: 1-1 draw.
Here are the odds for the match at Bet365:
Benfica win - 3.20
Draw - 3.40
Dortmund win - 2.40
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Comments (1)
sharpe
03/02/17, 02:03:18 AM
Well, Dortmund should regret that they didn't scored an away goal which should be quite great insurance before the second match, they missed a penalty. Borussia...
Well, Dortmund should regret that they didn't scored an away goal which should be quite great insurance before the second match, they missed a penalty. Borussia shown really improved form after this game in the German league when they won two consecutive games with a same scoreline 3-0 which should give them a confidence before Benfica clash. The turnaround in this match-up is fully possible I think.
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