Benfica vs Porto Betting Tips

Benfica have been in unstoppable form since just before the Christmas break. They’ve climbed to the top of the Portuguese Primeira Liga table taking advantage of some slip ups by both Sporting Lisbon and Porto. They’ve got a Champions League tie against Zenit St. Petersburg to look forward to this month, interestingly, this game follows a Thursday night semi-final first leg against Braga, it’ll be curious to see how the squad is managed across the two games, surely one of the two starting XI’s put out will need to be weakened.

It just isn’t happening for Porto this season and they are slipping behind Benfica and Sporting Lisbon in the league table. After one shock loss to Vitoria Guimaraes, they seemed to be rebuilding until they were beaten 2-1 by Arouca last weekend. They are six points adrift behind the top two, and it feels like, from a momentum perspective, they need to at least hold Benfica in this game to stay relevant, even if the mathematics suggests that nine points isn’t too much.

Head-to-Head

This is the great rivalry in Portuguese football. Porto came out on top earlier this season playing at home and winning 1-0. Benfica have won just once in their last seven clashes with Porto, while this Friday’s visitors have won four of those matches.

Team News

Lucas Pugh could play in one of the two games for Benfica this weekend, while they’ll be hoping that Palmeira and Rafael da Silva Floro can be available for at least one of the clashes reinforcing the back four and defensive fortitude of the midfield. Miguel Rosa and Leme Amorim Rafael are expected to remain sidelined until at least after the weekend.

Alberto Bueno, Goebel Evandro and perhaps most crucially experienced defender Maicon are all expected to miss out due to injury for Porto.

Reason for Betting Tips

There’s a few reasons that we like the “upset” pick here. Porto are at the best number they’ve been all season because of their rough patch of form, we’re not convinced that the gap between the top three is significant. Typically, they’ve been great at playing well against Benfica, they’ve lost Primeira Liga titles based on consistency against the weaker teams. We’ll take our chances on Porto getting something out of this big showcase game on Friday night.