Primeira Liga: Benfica vs Porto Odds, Preview
O Classico Takes Center Stage
Portugal’s Most Prominent Clubs Face Off
O Classico, between Benfica and Porto, is one of the most important matches in Portuguese soccer. Benfica and Porto are the two most successful clubs domestically and they’re two of Portugal’s three representatives in this season’s Champions League. Friday marks the first Primeira Liga O Classico of the season as Benfica host Porto. Benfica defeated Porto in the Supercup back in August but the visitors have gotten the better of Benfica in recent years. For Friday’s massive match, we’ll take a look at the Benfica vs Porto odds.
Benfica vs Porto
Date & Time:
Location: Estádio do Sport Lisboa e Benfica, Lisbon, Portugal
Head-to-Head:
Back in August, Benfica and Porto met in the Portuguese Super Cup. In his first competitive match back at Benfica, Angel Di Maria opened up the scoring and Petar Musa doubled the lead. The win was Benfica’s second in the last three meetings and the soccer lines priced Benfica as +120 pre-match favorites. Porto has lost just one of the last eight matchups in the Primeira Liga.
Bounce Back for Benfica
S.L. Benfica’s Champions League campaign got off to a poor start. Taking on RB Salzburg at home, center-back Antonio Silva picked up a red card in the first 15 minutes of the match. On the ensuing penalty, Salzburg’s Roko Simic converted and Benfica was left playing catch-up. To be fair, the hosts did have the better spells of possession, even with a man down, and created a fair few chances.
Still, Oscar Gloukh got a second-half insurance goal for RB Salzburg and Benfica fell 2-0. Over the weekend, Benfica bounced back and defeated Portimonense 3-1 on the road. Alexander Bah opened up the scoring in the fifth minute with a long-range effort and David Neres assisted Petar Musa just 12 minutes later. Portimonense got a goal back in the second half but Neres added a goal of his own to give Benfica a 3-1 lead. A look at the Benfica standings shows that the Portuguese giants are in third place in the Primeira Liga standings through six matches.
They’re 5-1 in the league and Rafa Silva has been their standout star, with three goals and four assists. Angel Di Maria has also added four goals and an assist upon his return to Lisbon. Coach Roger Schmidt will want to see more from new signing Arthur Cabral as well, as he’s failed to score a league goal so far. Regardless, the Benfica vs Porto odds price the hosts as +105 favorites for Friday’s match.
Porto Scoring Less Than Usual
FC Porto made their fans proud in their first Champions League game. Galeno scored twice and provided an assist all within the first 30 minutes of their match at Shakhtar Donetsk. The game finished 3-1 and Porto is expected to advance out of Group H, alongside Barcelona. The following Saturday, Porto scored in the first ten minutes of the match again as they hosted Gil Vicente. Mehdi Taremi set up Ivan Jaime for the first goal of the match.
Gil Vicente equalized in the 37th minute and the match remained level until the closing stages. Wendell whipped in a left-footed free kick that Canada international Stephen Eustaquio headed into the net. With the 2-1 win, the FC Porto standings show that they’re level on points with league leaders Sporting but in second on goal difference.
All five of Porto’s Primeira Liga wins this season have come by a one-goal margin and four of those have finished 2-1. While Porto averaged over two goals per game in the 2022-23 season, they’ve scored just 10 times in six matches so far. Still, they’ve won three straight matches in all competitions. Defender Ivan Marcano is out for quite some time, while forward Evanilson is expected to be out until next month.
Match Analysis & Odds
Benfica head into this match without a win in their last four home league matches vs. FC Porto. During that time, they were 0-3-1 but Benfica did manage to pick up a win over Porto in the Super Cup. For Friday’s O Classico, Benfica pk, -0.5 sits at -125 odds and Porto pk, +0.5 is at -105. The Benfica vs Porto odds also price the hosts as +110 odds. Notably, Benfica have scored at least twice in all of their first six Primeira Liga matches.
All of Angel Di Maria, Rafa Silva, and Petar Musa have scored at least three goals for Benfica so far. Meanwhile, no Porto player has scored more than two league goals yet. Porto are +240 underdogs for this one but have won their last two league matches at Benfica.
A draw also displays +240 odds in what’s expected to be a close match. Porto will be up against it trying to shut down a potent Benfica attack. Under 2.5 goals are priced at -115 odds for the match but both teams have scored in five of the last seven league matchups.
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