Benfica Lisbon vs. Ajax Amsterdam: preview and betting tips

The Champions League semi-finals bring the Portuguese and Dutch champions together. It will therefore be a duel between Benfica Lisbon and Ajax Amsterdam. The opening match is played in Portugal, the rematch will be played in the Netherlands.

Ajax Amsterdam are regular participants in the Champions League and have recently put in performances that guarantee them qualification for the knockout stages. Benfica Lisbon don’t play Champions League that often and are not used to knockout stages at all. The last time it played in the eighth round was five years ago.

Benfica Lisbon have not been in the best of form recently. Out of the last five games, they have won once, drawn twice and lost twice. It should be noted that one draw then went to penalties, where Benfica won.

However, due to their poor form, they are a long way from defending their title. They are only third in the league and 12 points behind first-placed Porto.

Ajax Amsterdam’s form is much better. Ajax are on a run of ten straight wins in the competition. They have a five-point lead in the league and are on course for another league title.

Benfica can do well against Dutch teams at home. In the last eight games, they have managed seven wins and one draw. However, not one of the games was against Ajax. The latter also holds an interesting statistic. Ajax coach Erik ten Haag has never lost against a Portuguese team, recording three wins and one draw.

Ajax hold another interesting statistic. In the Champions League, they have a run of six wins in a row. If it had won in the opening game of the eight-finals, it would have stretched it to number seven. That would make it the first team outside the top five European competitions to achieve such a statistic.

Ajax’s Sebastien Haller is the top scorer in the entire Champions League so far. He has managed to score 10 goals in six games. No other player has scored as many goals this season. Let’s see if he can make it against a team that has kept a clean sheet five times in the last seven games in this competition.

Benfica have been performing well at home but have not been in great form recently. Ajax are much better and will therefore be favourites in the first leg, even though they are playing away.