Atletico Madrid vs Benfica Betting Tips

There are a lot of comparisons to draw in the way these two sides have started the season. Both have a record of 12 points from their opening 6 games in the league and both won their opening Champions League game 2-0. Certainly you would expect them to be the two outstanding sides in what doesn’t look like a particularly strong group with Astana and Galatasaray making up the numbers.

In terms of this game it is hard to look past Atletico though. Benfica sold a lot of key players over the summer and in January and are still trying to build a new side and a really tough task like the one they will face at the Vicente Calderon may just come too soon for them.
Certainly their away form so far this season has been very poor. They have only played 2 games on the road but both ended in 1-0 defeats at minnows Arouca and crucially away to Porto only 10 days ago.

Atletico were also beaten on the road at the weekend going down 1-0 away to Villarreal but they’ll still be reasonably happy with how they’ve started given they’ve had to play 4 of the other 5 sides who finished in the top 6 last year within the opening 7 rounds of fixtures. That tough start continues with the visit of Real Madrid on Sunday for a crunch derby clash and Diego Simeone may have one eye on the fixture but he won’t be taking any chances here given this is the Champions League.

Atletico Madrid have an astonishing defensive record at home in this competition. In the last 2 seasons they have conceded a total of just 2 goals at the Vicente Calderon and the likes of Chelsea, Juventus, Real Madrid and Barcelona have all come here and failed to score in a run of 7 consecutive home clean sheets stretching back to the 1st Knock-Out Round of the 2013-14 season when Atleti reached the final.

It’s hard to see Benfica really ending that run given they are a depleted side and Atletico look very good value to win to nil at 21/20. With back-to-back games against Astana coming up, 3 points here would put them in the absolute driving seat in this group and would allow them to focus more on La Liga in the run up to Christmas.

They don’t tend to win big though, especially in this competition. Their trend in recent weeks has been to secure a 2 goal lead and then go into cruise control and they’ve won 3 of their last 4 games 2-0. You can back that being the case here again at 5/1.