After being knocked out of last season's Champion League at the group stage, Red Star Belgrade are back in the big time on the continent after overcoming Norwegian side Bodo/Glimt in the play-off round.

Despite losing the first leg 2-1 away from home, Red Star bounced back to win the return leg 2-0 in front of their home fans thanks to goals on either side of half-time from Bruno Duarte and Uros Spajic to win 3-2 on aggregate and end August on a high.

Since then, Vladan Milojevic's men have kicked off September with successive wins over Radnicki Kragujevac and Napredak in the Serbian SuperLiga, with the latter beaten 2-0 at home last weekend.

Red Star have won each of the last seven Serbian SuperLiga titles and have made a strong start to the new campaign, sitting three points clear at the top after winning six and drawing one of their opening seven games, scoring 21 goals and conceding just four.

However, success in the Champions League has been hard to come by for Red Star, who have lost 14 of their last 18 matches in the competition, with only Malmo (83%) having a worse loss record than the Serbs (78%). However, Milojevic's side have never been beaten on home soil by the Portuguese (W2 D1).

Benfica are competing in the Champions League for the fourth consecutive season and will be hoping to avoid another early exit after crashing out in the group stage of last season's competition, having previously reached the quarter-finals in 2022-23.

The Eagles finished second in the Primeira Liga last season, 10 points behind champions Sporting, and they are already five points adrift of their Lisbon rivals after five games, having dropped points against Famalicao (2-0 defeat) and Moreirense (1-1 draw).

Roger Schmidt was sacked by Benfica following the draw with Moreirense and has since been replaced by Bruno Lage, who returned to the club four years after his first spell in charge and led the Eagles to a comfortable 4-1 home win over Santa Clara last weekend.

Despite conceding the opening goal inside the first 30 seconds, Lage was pleased with his side's response and believes the result was "the first step" in getting the club's "fundamental" supporters back on board ahead of "a long season".

Benfica will be eager to get their Champions League campaign off to a positive start, having won their opening game in just one of their last seven appearances in the competition, while they have won just one of their last eight Champions League matches overall (D2 L5).

Red Star Belgrade possible starting lineup:

Glazer; Mimovic, Djiga, Spajic, Seol; Krunic, Elsnik; Silas, Ivanic, Olayinka; Duarte

Benfica possible starting lineup:

Trubin; Bah, Silva, Otamendi, Carreras; Florentino, Kokcu; Di Maria, Rollheiser, Akturkoglu; Pavlidis

Prediction:Red Star Belgrade 1-2 Benfica

Red Star Belgrade VS Benfica stream and TV listing

International：Holasports