Benfica welcome Israeli club Maccabi Haifa to Lisbon this Tuesday in the first game of their 2022/23 UEFA Champions League season.
Venue: Estádio da Luz (Lisbon)
Key Statistics
Benfica have won their last nine games in all competitions.
They have kept six clean sheets in their last nine competitive games.
They have scored 2+ goals in each of their last five competitive games at home.
Maccabi Haifa have lost just one of their last five away competitive games.
They have scored 2+ goals in six of their last seven games.
Head to head
This is the first meeting between both sides.
Latest performances in all competitions
Benfica: W-W-W-W-W
Maccabi Haifa: W-W-W-D-W
Benfica
Benfica will look to begin their UCL group stage games the way they ended the qualifying round when they welcome Maccabi Haifa to Lisbon this Tuesday.
The hosts qualified for this round of the tournament by beating Midtjylland and Dynamo Kyiv over two legs while winning all the games.
After a third-place finish last season, they have come out this season on hit form. So far they have won all five of their league games, scoring 13 times and conceding just three goals to take them top of their domestic league table.
Having navigated their qualifier games without tasting defeat, they will come into this tie confident of getting the kind of result that will give them the chance to finish within the top two in this group.
Possible Benfica starting line-up
Odisseas Vlachodimos; Gilberto, Nicolas Otamendi, Morato, Alejandro Grimaldo; Enzo Fernandez, Florentino Luis; David Neres, Rafa Silva, Joao Mario; Gonzalo Ramos.
Injured: Julian Draxler, João Victor, Lucas Verissimo, Tomas Tavares
Doubtful: None
Suspended: None
Maccabi Haifa
After a 13-year absence, Israeli champions Maccabi Haifa return to the group stage of the Champions League group stage looking to do better than the previous attempt.
The visitors lost all of their group stage games when they made their first UCL appearance in 2009 – a group which incidentally also included Juventus.
They qualified for this stage of the tournament by beating Olympiacos, Apollon and Crvena Zvezda. And so they will come into this tournament more confident than when they made their debut in 2019.
Barak Bakhar’s side have a 100% domestic record coming into this fixture, with a 92nd-minute winner against Hapoel Be’er Sheva on Saturday making it three wins from three in the league.
The Greens will need every ounce of momentum gained from their late victory if they are to secure a positive result here against a heavily-fancied Benfica, especially considering Haifa haven’t won a UCL fixture since the 2002 group stage.
Possible Maccabi Haifa starting line-up
Josh Cohen; Daniel Sundgren, Sean Goldberg, Ofri Arad, Pierre Cornud; Neta Lavi, Ali Mohamed; Omer Atzili, Tjaronn Chery, Din David; Frantzdy Pierrot.
Injured: None
Doubtful: Mahmoud Jaber, Raz Meir
Suspended: None
Prediction
Benfica 2-0 Maccabi Haifa
