Benfica vs Rangers Preview

Portuguese football club Benfica and Scottish giants Rangers will square up at the Estádio da Luz on Thursday in the first leg of their Europa League knockout tie.

Benfica qualified for this stage of the Europa League courtesy of a 2-1 aggregate win over Toulouse in the playoffs. The hosts began in the Champions League this season though, meaning that they are technically playing in a competition lower than the standard they started with this season.

Yet, they will be happy to go the distance in this competition as they look to win their first European trophy since 1962 but their preparation for this tie wasn’t ideal as they suffered an embarrassing 5-0 loss to Porto in the Portuguese domestic league knocking them off the top of the table, one point behind Porto.

That loss was their second in a row as it followed a 2-1 loss to Sporting in a cup game. However, before those successive losses, Roger Schmidt’s men were undefeated in eight games (W6, D2) so it would be wrong to assume they are not in form.

Their fans will expect them to trouble Rangers here especially since the Eagles boast a dominant record against Scottish opposition (W6, D3, L3). Within those games is an almost perfect home record (W5, D1), although the hosts may not take this for granted as their 2-1 home win against Toulouse in the first leg of the previous round was their only victory across their last five European home games (D1, L3).

Meanwhile, Rangers are playing at this stage of the Europa League thanks to their impressive top-of-the-table finish in their Europa League group. The visitors topped a group that included top opponents like Real Betis and Sparta Prague so they could pose a huge threat to Benfica.

However, they had a bad outing last weekend losing at home to Motherwell in the league. That result delivered a blow to their domestic title hopes but they can take comfort in the fact that before that game they were unbeaten in 2024, winning each of their first ten competitive games in the year.

Another encouraging fact going into this game is that they have a strong record against Portuguese opponents (W11, D7, L4). Two of those clashes against Portuguese sides came on the way to the 2021/22 UEL final when Rangers dumped Braga out of the competition at the quarter-final stage.

However, that season was the only time that Rangers had progressed from a UEL last-16 tie (W1, L3), and having failed to win in eight of their last nine European away games (W1, D1, L7), a positive start to the tie in this clash is not a given.