Champions League
2012-03-27 - Benfica vs Chelsea
A Sports Betting Pick by Auls
Football: European Champions League, Quarter Final First Leg
Tuesday 27 March 2012 - Kick Off 7:45pm
This game is live on TV
Benfica
Benfica have already help knock out one English team in the Champions League this season and will now go for number 2 as the former European Champions have reached the last 8 of the competition. It has been a while since Benfica were mixing with the elite in European football and they will not want to end their adventure here.
I think Benfica may be another one of the surprise participants at this stage of the competition, although they were favoured to beat Zenit St Petersburg in the last Round, a tie they won 4-3 on aggregate. The team are yet another that had to come through at least a couple of Rounds in the Qualifying section to get into the Group Stage, with much of their success coming at the Stadium of Light. Benfica are 4-2-0 in home games in the Champions League this season.
The Primeira Liga is being contested by three teams this season and Benfica are well in the mix for the title, currently trailing Sporting Braga by 2 points going into the final stretch of the season. They could only earn a 0-0 draw last Friday in the League, but they had won 4 in a row in all competitions before that. Benfica have won 11 of their last 12 games at home.
Ezequiel Garay and Yannick Djalo are both likely to be absent for this game, while Pablo Aimar is available after serving a suspension in the last Round.
Chelsea
After all the positives surrounding the start that Roberto Di Matteo made in his tenure as interim manager of Chelsea, the team have been brought back down to earth in their last couple of games. I have been saying that I am not convinced with Chelsea who have beaten a couple of Championship sides in the Di Matteo era, but their win over Napoli in the last Round was impressive.
Chelsea will feel happy with the draw in this Quarter Final round of the Champions League, even though they are likely to face Barcelona in the Semi Final if they are to progress. The Blues needed extra time to beat Napoli in the last Round, but it was impressive nonetheless as they overturned a 3-1 first leg loss. Chelsea have failed to win any of their last 4 away games in the Champions League and have now won just 1 in 7.
The confidence in the team must have been knocked a little as they were beaten by Manchester City last Wednesday and then failed to beat Tottenham Hotspur at the weekend leaving their chances of getting into the Champions League next season in doubt. Chelsea have only lost 1 of their last 6 games, but they have lost 4 of their last 5 away games in all competitions, the only exception being a win at Birmingham City.
Branislav Ivanovic is a doubt for this game after limping off at Manchester City last week, but there are no other real injury worries for their trip to Portugal.
Head to Head
This will be the first competitive game between the teams.
Benfica will feel confident after avoiding defeat against Manchester United twice in the Group Stages.
Prediction
This is a tough tie for Chelsea, probably tougher than some fans and the media are imagining, as they play a technically good side that will use their pace to attack an ageing Chelsea side.
Benfica have been solid at home in the Champions League this season, and I think they will be happy if they can take a small lead over to England next week. Chelsea, on the other hand, have made it clear they do want an away goal, but they want to focus on not conceding as many as they did in Napoli to make things a little easier at home.
It is hard to see how this first leg will go and I am hesitant to pick any of the three options in the win-lose-win market.
However, I feel I may have found a market that could potentially pay out and that is Chelsea to score first but fail to win the game. All 4 of their away games in the Champions League has seen the Blues take the lead but fail to win the game, while they did the same at Manchester City recently.
You can imagine a situation where Chelsea do score first in this game and they try and defend deep with the ambition of keeping a clean sheet and potentially failing to protect that lead. With the way their Champions League games away from home have gone this season, that looks a big price at 5.00.
The Pick :
Benfica 1-1 Chelsea
