Game Time Thread: Juventus vs. Benfica

We will almost certainly know in a couple of hours whether Juventus will still have any sort of chance of advancing into the Champions League knockout rounds.

The likelihood of that achievement actually taking place ... doesn’t look good.

And yet, here we are waiting to see how Juventus does against Benfica in Lisbon, with the extremely slim chances of Champions League football come the new year actually being a thing that we are considering. In typical Max Allegri fashion he basically gave the kind of line that said “We aren’t out of the Champions League, we aren’t in the Europa League, so we’re going to continue to play no matter what” kind of response when asked about Juve’s current situation during his pre-match press conference 24 hours earlier.

But the memories of what Benfica did against Juventus in Turin not too long ago is still very much fresh in our minds. It was one of the worst performances in an opening two months that was filled with pretty bad performances for Allegri and his crew.

Will this day be any better?

Playing at the Estadio da Luz isn’t easy.

Playing against this Benfica team, one that has not lost this season and is coming off a big win against Porto over the weekend, isn’t easy, either.

So we’ll see if the Juventus that shows itself when things are dire and the issues is to be forced like we’ve seen in years past. (Those, however, were much different teams than this one, so who the heck knows.) And we’ll see if Juventus is still in contention for a Champions League knockout round spot when the final whistle sounds.

MATCH INFO

When: Tuesday, Oct. 25, 2022.

Where: Estadio da Luz, Lisbon, Portugal.

Official kickoff time: 9 p.m. local time and around Europe, 8 p.m. UK time, 3 p.m. Eastern time, 12 p.m. Pacific time.

STARTING LINEUPS

Juventus starting XI (3-5-2): Szczesny; Danilo, Bonucci, Gatti; Cuadrado, McKennie, Locatelli, Rabiot, Kostic; Kean, Vlahovic.

Juventus bench: Pinsoglio, Perin, Alex Sandro, Rugani, Miretti, Fagioli, Milik, Soulé, Iling-Junior.

Benfica starting XI (4-2-3-1): Vlachodimos; Bah, Antonio Silva, Otamendi, Grimaldo; Fernandez, Florentino; Aursnes, Rafa Silva, Joao Mario; Goncalo Ramos.

Benfica bench: TBA

HOW TO WATCH

Television: BT Sport 8 (United Kingdom); Sky Sport Football, Sky Sport 252 (Italy).

Online/Streaming: Paramount+ (United States); DAZN (Canada); BT Sport app, BTSport.com (United Kingdom); Sky GO Italia (Italy).

Other live viewing options can be found here, and as always, you can also follow along with us live and all the stupid things we say on Twitter. If you haven’t already, join the community on Black & White & Read All Over, and join in the discussion below.