Featured Image Credit: Alamy
Topics: Juventus, Benfica, Champions League
Ben King
Portuguese side Benfica head to Italy to face European giants Juventus in the second week of this year’s Champions League.
After falling to a 2-1 defeat in Paris last week, Juve are in desperate need of a win if they want to escape the group stages.
Despite putting in a decent performance against the French champions, an Mbappe double gave PSG a 2-0 lead and the Bianconeri did not have enough firepower to crawl back from the 2 goal deficit.
It has also been a similarly disappointing start to Juve’s Serie A campaign, as they sit in 8th place after six games and are four points off league leaders Napoli.
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Benfica on the other hand will be pleased with their performance in their opening Champions League game.
The two-time winners of the competition raced to a 2-0 lead against Maccabi Haifa, thanks to second half goals from Rafa Silva and Alex Grimaldo.
With PSG looking like strong favourites to top Group H, this evening’s clash becomes increasingly important, and whoever can earn themselves a result will be in a good position to also enter the knockout stages.
Here's everything you need to know about Juventus vs Benfica
Juventus vs Benfica is available to UK viewers on the BT Sport Extra channel. It can also be watched via a livestream on the BT Sport app or website, with kick-off scheduled for 8pm BST.
Juventus continue to be plagued by injuries, with star men Paul Pogba and Federico Chiesa still suffering from long-term issues. Alongside this, Angel Di Maria and Manuel Locatelli both missed last weekend’s fiery draw with Salernitana.
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Some positive news for Juve fans is that, despite being red carded at the weekend, Juan Cuadrado and Arkadiusz Milik are both available as their suspensions only apply in the domestic league.
The visitors will be without defensive trio Morato, Joao Victor and Lucas Verrisimo, but they welcome back top scorer Goncalo Ramos who served his one game ban at the weekend.