Ileana Sanchez
Dailysports's expert
Inter
Benfica
On April 19, Giuseppe Meazza (Milan) will host the second leg of the 1/4 finals of the Champions League, in which Inter will compete with Benfica. The battle will start at 21:00 CET.
Inter
The team looks quite contradictory. It defended the status of the owner as the Italian Super Cup and achieved a 1-1 draw in the first semi-final of the Coppa Italia against Juventus. At the same time, it loses the points in the Serie A pretty often, including the April matches – thus, there is a real threat of being left without a place in the final top 4 of the standings. Still, everything works in the Champions League. The group stage, where the struggle with Barcelona for the second place was won, and the difficult but successful confrontation in the 1/8 finals with Porto prove the higher mentioned fact. Speaking about the previous opponent, everything was decided by Lukaku’s only ball in the end of the home match. Romelu also scored on Tuesday – that was a penalty, which brought the final 2-0 success. This time, “the Nerazzurri” have a great chance to play pragmatic, “Italian” football at their arena – after all, the team can lose by 1 goal and still become a semi-finalist of the main European tournament.
Benfica
The club, in any case, was able to add in the performance. If in the previous season it was only the third one in the Primeira, then, being under the rule of Roger Schmidt, who had become the new coach in the summer, the team managed to reach a long unbeaten streak and go into a single lead. By the way, the Portuguese grandee does its best in the Champions League. It overcame the group stage in a powerful way, winning a quartet in which there were two draws in the battles with PSG and defeated Juventus twice. As for the 1/8 finals, “the Eagles” confidently defeated Brugge. Moreover, they were at least not weaker than Inter in Lisbon last Tuesday. At the same time, they could not score to Onana, but actually conceded the goal from the first good moment made by Italians. Speaking about the very end of the game, thanks to VAR, the referee considered João Mario’s handball, appointing the controversial penalty. Thus, “the Red and Whites” need a real miracle.
The statistics of head-to-head matches
Inter has not lost to Benfica yet. The clubs played in the UEFA Cup in 2004, and then it was more difficult to reach the final success: a 0-0 draw in Lisbon and a 4-3 victory in Milan.
Predictions
Bookmakers consider the chances of the guests to be miserable. They probably won’t even try. Thus, we recommend betting on one more victory for Inter (odd: 2.07).
