Benfica travel to the Stade Louis II for the second time this season to face Monaco in the Champions League knockout round playoffs on Wednesday night.

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After being strong contenders for the top eight throughout the league phase, Monaco ended up all the way down in 17th, missing out on being seeded for these playoffs.

The 3-0 defeat Adi Hutter's men suffered at San Siro against Inter Milan on matchday eight was the cause of that, but a 3-2 loss against Benfica started their slide down the standings.

It is still an objective completed for Monaco though, who would have taken a top-24 finish prior to the start of the competition after successive group stage exits, in what is their first season back in the competition since 2018-19.

Monaco have faced some challenging opponents in 2025 so far, but there is no doubt that form is faltering, with five defeats from nine this calendar year, conceding 11 goals in their last four.

The hosts were thumped 4-1 at Paris Saint-Germain at the weekend, seeing them slip out of the Ligue 1 top three for the first time in many months, and that is not the sort of preparation they would have liked ahead of a hugely important home leg.

November's defeat to Benfica extended their winless record over their upcoming opponents, and against teams from Portugal in general, Monaco often face great difficulty, with just one win in eight - against Sporting Lisbon in 1997.

Benfica took four points off Monaco in the group stages of this competition back in 2014, before winning again 10 years later in the league phase earlier this season.

They will now need to repeat the feat if they want to make amends for a group stage exit in the Champions League last season, after successive quarter-final runs prior to that.

This is the first time Benfica have faced the same club at two separate stages of a Champions League campaign, but with just three defeats in 13 games against French opponents, they may not be too disappointed with the outcome of the draw.

Confidence is also much higher in the camp now than it was merely two weeks ago, when manager Bruno Lage was confronted by angry supporters about the results on the pitch.

Benfica lost 5-4 to Barcelona despite leading 3-1 and 4-2, before then falling to a 3-1 defeat at Casa Pia, but since then, they have been perfect.

A huge 2-0 win away to Juventus saw them reach the playoffs, when a defeat would have seen them eliminated, and the Eagles have gone on to record back-to-back 3-2 wins over Estrela and Moreirense, leaving them just four points behind rivals Sporting at the top of the Primeira Liga.

Probable Lineups