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It’s hard to know which Bayern Munich are going to show up at the moment, as while they’ve won 13 of their 15 games this season, scoring at least three times in all of them, they’ve suffered shock defeats to Eintracht Frankfurt and Borussia Monchengladbach, with the latter coming back a humbling 5-0 scoreline.
Benfica are no pushovers, though they lost the reverse fixture 4-0 at home, while their form has considerably dropped in recent weeks.
Having started the season with 12 wins from 13 unbeaten matches, a run culminating with a confidence inducing 3-0 victory over Barcelona, they have now won just one of their last six matches over 90 minutes, with that coming with a last gasp winner over bottom half side Vizela in the league.
While Benfica are extremely capable of getting a result here on their day, with their current form it’s difficult to see how they’ll manage that.
The Bavarians have won nine of their last 10 home games in this competition, only losing to PSG in that run, so we’d certainly expect them to come up trumps here.
What’s more, despite the higher standard of opponent usually encountered in this competition, Bayern have regularly won comfortably, with 15 of their last 16 home wins coming by at least two clear goals going back to December 2016.
Benfica have a strong recent away record, though that’s mainly domestically and when international travel is involved, they’ve often struggled to get over the line.
Indeed, in this competition, they’ve won just three of their last 15 road trips, with those results coming against PAOK, AEK Athens and Spartak Moskow, all of whom are considerably weaker than Bayern, so the outcome looks pretty straightforward in this one.
Robert Lewandowski To Score 2 Or More Goals
While Benfica are far from a poor defensive unit, we’d expect goals in this game with the attacking talent on display, especially from the hosts.
Robert Lewandowski has already netted 22 goals this season for club and country, scoring eight in six home games for Bayern and netting 10 in his last seven Champions League outings, netting in each and scoring two or more in half of his last six such outings, so another brace could well be on the cards.
Over 3.5 Goals
That leads us to believe that there’ll be goals here, with the hosts seeing over 2.5 goals land in each of their last 15 games since an opening day draw with Monchengladbach.
Benfica currently sit second, and will be determined to keep the scoreline down here by with head-to-head records the deciding factor in European Competition, if they concede early on the flood gates might open as they push for an equaliser, with goal difference taking a back seat.
PREDICTION:
LEWANDOWSKI TO SCORE 2 OR MORE GOALS
OVER 3.5 GOALS
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