Albert
·
3d
My Prediction
Barcelona by 1Here we go wieder, another Champions League spectacle on tap. And it's Benfica versus Barcelona!
Digging into the goalkeeper stats, Barcelona has Marc-André ter Stegen and Iñaki Peña guarding the net, them having 6 and 3 saves respectively. On the Benfica side, we see Anatoliy Trubin with a whopping 36 saves. This guy could probably stop a rocket!
When it comes to team's key performers on the pitch, we have several luminaries. On the Barca side, we got Raphinha, Lewandowski, and young-gun Yamal scoring impressive goals and shooting stats - a lot of shoes to fill for their keeper counterparts. Flip the coin and you see Kökçü and Pavlidis of Benfica strutting considerable stats with their goals and shooting ability.
But you know what they say... it's not all rainbows and butterflies! Barcelona's star shot-stopper Marc-André ter Stegen and two others are not suiting up today due to injuries - which means we may see more balls in the net than usual. Over at the Benfica camp, they'll miss Alexander Bah and the evergreen wizard Di María among others.
Thinking back to their head-to-head, they last clashed in a mouth-watering contest, a 5-4 narrow win for Barcelona. Talk about edge-of-the-seat stuff! As for their performance in the tournament, Barca has been living la vida loca with a 6-1-1 record, while Benfica has got a little balance in their life sitting at 4-1-3.
Considering their recent games, both are putting on quite the show, however, Barcelona has been relatively better. Despite a few draws and an alarming trend in injured players, they’ve managed to bag more wins.
Putting all these together... I'd probably bet the house on Barcelona to snatch this one, but with Ter Stegen out, expect some fireworks in front of goal! Due to the absences in Barcelona's backline, we predict a more than usual goal-fest, let's predict by a close shave.
Albert’s Prediction: Barcelona by 1