RB Salzburg is live underdog in Champions League match with Benfica on Wednesday

The Portuguese League isn’t known as a powerhouse in the European Soccer landscape these days, but Benfica could be changing that reputation with the way they’ve performed over the last two seasons.

The Eagles were one of the pleasant surprises of the Champions League two years ago when they advanced from a group that featured Bayern Munich and Barcelona, but they one-upped themselves by winning Group H ahead of Paris Saint-Germain and Juventus in 2022-23. Back-to-back quarterfinal appearances and a terrific start domestically has some built up some serious momentum for the Eagles.

But those performances have also given Benfica some serious expectations to live up to now. The Eagles are the second-favorite to advance out of Group D, which also features Inter Milan, Real Sociedad and RB Salzburg.

There’s no doubt that Benfica deserves plenty of plaudits for what it’s accomplished the past two seasons -- and for their strong start this campaign -- but it’s so hard for a team like the Eagles to replace the talent they’ve lost over the last few transfer windows, most notably Darwin Nunez and Goncalo Ramos.

All of this has me thinking that the market may just be a bit too high on Benfica before its Matchweek 1 showdown with RB Salzburg. At the time of writing Benfica is a -235 favorite on the three-way moneyline and that price seems a bit lofty even against the biggest longshot in the group.

» READ MORE: Three long shot bets worth making during the 2023-24 Champions League season after league draw

And it’s not like Salzburg isn’t a dangerous team. The Red Bulls may not have any superstar players yet, but they’ve become one of the best clubs in the world at identifying and developing young talent, so they’ve got significant upside and they play a very aggressive style of football that can give all sorts of teams issues.

Benfica is at home and is the team with more established talent, but the ceiling for RB Salzburg is high enough that they’re always tempting at big prices, especially when they’re taking on a team that isn’t playing in one of the elite leagues in Europe.

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