Zenit faces Benfica

Zenit faces Benfica at the Saint-Petersburg Stadium in a game from Group G of the Champions League. We advice you to stay with us, because we are going to take a look at this fixture in our Champions League predictions.

Zenit had a successful start of their Champions League campaign, winning a point during the visit to Olympique Lyonnais at the Groupama Stadium. The Russians were regarded underdogs against the Ligue 1 side, but they showed a solid performance. Sardar Azmoun opened the score for Zenit, but the French side equalised with a well executed penalty kick by Memphis Depay.

We can say that Zenit are approaching this game in a bad mood, though. During the weekend they faced title rivals Lokomotiv Moscow in the Russian Premier League, conceding a 0-1 defeat in the capital. The visitors got beaten with a winning goal from the Polish international Grzegorz Krychowiak just after the start of the second half. At this moment Zenit are fifth in the league standings, being on two points behind the leader CSKA Moscow.

Benfica started their season in the Champions League in a really dissapointing way, suffering a home defeat from the hands of RB Leipzig. The visitors scored twice in the second half, when Timo Werner put the ball on two occasions behind Odisseas Vlachodimos’ back. Haris Seferovic managed to score one back for Benfica, but in the last minutes the German team defended well and kept its advantage.

This defeat in Lisboa surely is going to make the visit to Zenit even more important for Benfica. Last season the Portuguese giants were unable to reach the knockout phase, so now they will do everything they can to improve their performance.

In our Champions League predictions we expect a very competitive game between Zenit and Benfica on Wednesday. The draw seems like a very logical result here, but let’s see.