AC Milan welcome Benfica to this Europa League fixture with the Portuguese side carrying momentum that dwarfs anything the hosts have managed in recent weeks. Formatic's weighted form score puts Benfica at 8.9 out of 10, a mark of excellent recent output, while Milan languish at 5.4, a gap of 3.5 points that tells much of the story before a ball is kicked.

Milan have won 3 of their last 5 matches but the sequence lacks conviction. Two of those victories came in Serie A, 2-0 at home to Venezia and 2-1 away to Torino, while the third was a 4-2 friendly win at Manchester United that carries little competitive weight. The friendly schedule also brought a 3-0 defeat to Chelsea and a 1-1 draw with Inter, and across those five outings Milan have managed only 1 clean sheet while conceding 7 goals. They have failed to score in 20 percent of their season sample and kept clean sheets in just 10 percent, numbers that point to a side neither watertight at the back nor reliably sharp in attack. Their expected goals figure of 1.61 per match and 4.7 shots on target per game suggest a team creating chances without overwhelming opponents.

Benfica arrive unbeaten in their last 5, posting 4 wins and 1 draw while scoring 16 goals and conceding only 4. They have found the net in every one of those matches, a run that extends across their entire season sample where they have failed to score in 0 percent of games. The 7-0 hammering of Casa Pia and the two-legged 6-2 aggregate dismantling of Aarhus in Europa League qualifying underline their attacking threat, and even the 1-1 draw away to Heart Of Midlothian came in a European context. Benfica average 9.8 shots on target per game and dominate possession at 64.7 percent, numbers that dwarf Milan's 50.5 percent and speak to a side capable of controlling tempo and creating volume.

The solitary previous meeting between these sides was a 1-0 Benfica win in July 2019, a low-scoring affair that saw neither side in particularly sharp form, but the head to head sample is too thin to draw pattern from. What matters more is the present gulf. Milan have conceded in 4 of their last 5 and Benfica have scored in all 5 of theirs, a collision of trajectories that favours the visitors. The hosts' clean sheet rate of 10 percent against a Benfica attack that has blanked in none of their seasonal fixtures suggests Milan will need to find defensive discipline they have not shown. The form gap of 3.5 points is the widest Formatic awards in a steady versus excellent comparison, and the numbers point to a Benfica side capable of exploiting a Milan outfit still searching for consistency.