Benfica will head into the game with renewed confidence following their dominant win over Tondela last time out. However, they face a spirited Santa Clara side who have forced their way into the top half of the table after a superb turnaround. While we expect the visitors to put up a fight, we predict Benfica will come away with a slender win given they head into the game with a significantly-superior and more-experienced squad.
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Data Analysis
Our analysis of all available data, including recent performances and player stats up until an hour before kickoff, suggested the most likely outcome of this match was a Benfica win with a probability of 72.85%. A draw had a probability of 17% and a win for Santa Clara had a probability of 10.12%.
The most likely scoreline for a Benfica win was 2-0 with a probability of 12.82%. The next most likely scorelines for that outcome were 1-0 (11.14%) and 3-0 (9.84%). The likeliest drawn scoreline was 1-1 (8.1%), while for a Santa Clara win it was 0-1 (3.52%). The actual scoreline of 2-1 was predicted with a 9.3% likelihood. Our team at Sports Mole correctly predicted a 2-1 win for Benfica in this match and our data analysis correctly predicted the win for Benfica.
