Benfica reached the Champions League final 16 on Tuesday after successful an thrilling contest with Juventus 4-3 and sending the Italians out of the competitors.
Antonio Silva’s early header, a Joao Mario penalty simply earlier than the half-hour mark and Rafa Silva’s elegant brace stored Benfica second in Group H, eight factors forward of third-placed Juve with one sport to play.
Roger Schmidt’s facet are unbeaten in all competitions this season and might beat their group-stage factors file of 12 with a win at backside facet Maccabi Haifa subsequent week.
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Benfica are degree on 11 factors with leaders Paris Saint-Germain and have an opportunity to high the group subsequent week, though they would want Juve to get a consequence towards the French champions in Turin after being dumped out on the group stage for the primary time in 9 years.
“We performed brilliantly with and with out the ball,” mentioned Schmidt.
“We have been enjoying towards Juventus who should not a simple workforce to play towards, however we believed in ourselves and performed nice soccer.”
Juve travelled to Lisbon understanding that solely a win would give them any hope of creating it via to the final 16, however though Moise Kean had them degree within the twenty first minute the away facet by no means had the possibility to assert the three factors.
One other dangerous night time for Juve was considerably alleviated by the battle proven late on, with quickfire objectives from Arkadiusz Milik and Weston McKennie, and an enormous push for the win within the closing quarter-hour turning what seemed like being a thumping into merely a painful elimination.
“We made issues tough for ourselves,” under-fire Juve coach Massimiliano Allegri instructed Sky in Italy.
“(However) our elimination was already determined earlier than we performed tonight’s match.”
The defeat will put extra stress on Allegri on a day through which prosecutors in Italy closed preliminary investigations into alleged false accounting by Juve.
His workforce have misplaced 4 of their 5 matches within the competitors and should not even assured of dropping right down to the Europa League as they’re degree on simply three factors with Maccabi.
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Benfica have been properly on high by the point Antonio Silva put the hosts forward within the seventeenth minute, glancing in his first aim of the season from Enzo Fernandez’s vicious inswinging cross after a brief nook.
Kean shocked the bouncing residence crowd 4 minutes later when he jabbed residence following chaos from Filip Kostic’s nook. Though his end was initially dominated out for offside, a protracted VAR verify amid ear-piercing whistles led to the Serb drawing Juve degree.
However simply as Juve seemed like that they had rattled Benfica, Juan Cuadrado handed them the possibility to retake the lead from the penalty spot, a possibility which Joao Mario wolfed up with a strong strike within the twenty eighth minute.
And Rafa piled additional distress on Juve with 10 minutes remaining within the first half, simply after Dusan Vlahovic had fluffed an awesome probability to degree the scores for a second time.
The previous Portugal ahead unfold the ball extensive after which raced into the field, tracked by no-one and left fully free to audaciously backheel in Joao Mario’s drilled low cross.
Rafa confirmed one other contact of sophistication 5 minutes after the break to increase his workforce’s deserved result in three, dinking over Wojciech Szczesny after Leonardo Bonucci performed a lazy go straight to Alejandro Grimaldo.
The 29-year-old would have accomplished his hat-trick within the 76th minute had he not volleyed over one other lovely Joao Mario cross.
From there Juve all of a sudden introduced the match again to life.
Two minutes after Rafa’s miss, Milik swept in a cross from energetic teenage substitute Samuel Iling-Junior and seconds later McKennie reduce the deficit to only one, lashing in following a goalmouth scramble.
Juve pushed bravely understanding that they wanted two extra to maintain their Champions League marketing campaign going. They have been unable break via and have been fortunate to not concede a fifth with 4 minutes left when Rafa hit the submit with solely Szczesny to beat.
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