Portuguese giants Benfica kick off the 2021-2022 season with a Champions League qualifier against Spartak Moscow meeting a familiar face in the matchup with Rui Vitoria steering the Russian club.
Bookmaker 10Bet has the odds at 2.20 for Vitoria’s team to win at least one half and at 1.68 for Benfica to win either half.
※ Current Odds Date & Time: August 3rd, 11:00 A.M. (EST)
Vitoria, who has started his first season at Spartak enjoyed a very successful spell in charge of Benfica from 2015 to 2019 winning six trophies, including back-to-back league titles. He registered 125 wins across 184 games and lost just 31 matches.
Things eventually turned sour during the Vitoria era at the start of 2018-19 and he was sacked shortly after the team failed to record a single point during the Champions League group stage.
The former midfielder is back in European football following a short stint in charge of Al-Nassr in the Saudi Arabian league. He’s started his spell in Moscow with a win and a loss.
Spartak had a big bounce-back year last season finishing second behind Zenit Saint Petersburg. The club had previously gone through a couple of really disappointing campaigns, which saw the 10-time Russian champion end up seventh and fifth.
Benfica were third in Portugal last season behind Porto and city rivals Sporting, who ended a 19-year title drought. The team had a very rough spell through the winter months when there was a COVID-19 outbreak at the club, but they finished strongly with a run of 12 wins in their last 14 league fixtures.
Showing the same kind of form will surely lift the Eagles back to the top of the Portuguese league and back into the Champions League group stage as well. They were shocked by PAOK last season in the third qualifying round.
To get back into contention, Benfica shelled out 17 million euros for striker Roman Yaremchuk, who impressed during the Euros by scoring two goals and recording one assist for Ukraine. The deal marks the seventh-biggest transfer in the club’s history.
Yaremchuk suffered a bad Achilles injury at the start of 2020, but he recovered well and had a really nice 20-goal season in the Belgian Pro League for Gent before shining at the Euros and moving to the Otkritie Arena.
Manager Jorge Jesus had his side scoring over two goals per game in Portugal last season and the addition of Yaremchuk is bound to make Benfica even more dangerous.
