The Portuguese giants Benfica host Bundesliga outfit Borussia Dortmund in the first leg of their Champions League round of 16 tie on Tuesday night.
Benfica reached the knockout stages after finishing second in Group B behind Napoli. They lost both their matches against Napoli, while 8 points came from two wins against Dynamo Kiev and a pair of draws against Besiktas.
The team managed by Rui Vitoria boastsAof an excellent home record this season. They have 14 wins and 3 draws from their 18 matches in all competitions at the EstA?dio da Luz. The lone defeat was against Napoli in the group stage of the Champions League.
Meanwhile, Dortmund won their group with a 2 point cushion over La Liga giants Real Madrid. They were unbeaten and raked up 4 wins and 2 draws, both coming against Madrid. Thomas Tuchelas men are the highest scoring team in this seasonas group phase with 21 goals, one more than Barcelona. However, 14 of those came in two legs against Polish opposition Legia Warsaw.
Head to Head
The lone meeting between the two sides in a UEFA competition has to be dated back to the 1963/64 season in the two-legged final of European Champion Clubs Cup. Benfica won the first leg 2-1, but Dortmund thrashed them 5-0 in the return leg to overturn the deficit.
Benficaas record against German clubs in 42 matches is 12 wins, 14 draws and 16 defeats. However, they can boast of a strong record at home against Bundesliga oppositions; with 10 wins, 8 draws and 2 losses from 20 games.
Dortmund were up against Portuguese oppositions on 10 occasions and have a good record with 7 wins and 3 losses. All 3 defeats have come away at Portugal during their 5 visits. However they had won in the latest 2 visits. Meanwhile, they can boast of a 100% win record at home.
Team News
Benfica will not have the services of Andrija Zivkovic, the Serbia midfielder, who faces a ban. Lisandro Lopez and Jonas also miss out through injury.
Dortmund will miss the injured Sven Bender while Mario Gotze, Nuri Sahin, Marcel Schmelzer and Sebasitan Rode are all injury doubts.
Predicted Lineups
Benfica -AEderson Moraes (GK), Eliseu, Victor Lindelof, Luisao, Nelson Semedo, Andre Carrillo, Pizzi, Ljubomir Fejsa, Franco Cervi, Kostas Mitroglou, Jonas
Dortmund -ARoman Burki (GK), Matthias Ginter, Sokratis Papastathopoulos, Dzenis Burnic, Christian Pulisic, Julian Weigl, Raphael Guerreiro, Erik Durm, Ousmane Dembele, Marco Reus, Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang
