PAOK Salonika vs Benfica Free Betting Picks

On Tuesday, PAOK Salonika host Benfica for the semi-finals of the qualifying rounds for the Champions League. Both teams want to advance to the next round.

PAOK Salonika vs Benfica Free Betting Picks

Champion of Greece in 2019, PAOK lost its crown last year and finished in 2nd place in the standings 7 points behind the leader, Olympiakos. On the European stage, the team did not manage to extricate themselves from the preliminary rounds, beaten by the Slovaks of Slovan Bratislava. This season, the Thessaloniki-based team first dominated, at home, the Turks of Besiktas in the quarter-finals of these qualifying rounds for the Champions League (3-1) before winning, at home, their 1st Championship match played at home against Larisa last Friday (1-0).

Long at the head of the Portuguese championship last year, Benfica finally broke down and finished second in the standings with 5 units behind the winner, Porto. Present in the Champions League, Pizzi’s partners finished in 3rd place in their group (behind Leipzig and Lyon but ahead of Zenit) and were therefore transferred to the Europa League where they fell in the round of 16 against the Ukrainians of Shakhtar Donetsk. Benfica played its last official match on August 1st.

The workforce for PAOK Salonika vs Benfica

The PAOK workforce is not known to the general public. The club’s top scorer in the league last year, Polish striker Swiderski remains in competition with Englishman Chuba Akpom (ex-Arsenal). In the midfield, Moroccan midfielder El-Kaddouri plays an important role. This is also the case with Icelandic international Ingason behind.

Strong men from Benfica last year, Portuguese attacking midfielder Pizzi and solid Brazilian striker Carlos Vinicius (ex Monaco) are well available for this trip to Thessaloniki. We also find the German medium passed through Dortmund Julian Weigl who is responsible for balancing the Lisbon collective.