This week will be decisive for the continuity of Benfica (tomorrow) and Sporting (Thursday) in European competitions and the scenario, in the case of the Luz club, is not at all encouraging as it is forced to do what it never succeeded do: recover from a two-goal deficit at home, in this case against Inter Milan. Sporting, on the other hand, can dream with the smallest difference against Juventus after the defeat in Turin and has several examples to hold on to.
Let’s start with Benfica. Due to the 0-2 defeat at Luz a week ago, the red and white need a miracle in the first leg of the Champions quarter-finals, tomorrow in Milan. The level of difficulty is enormous and the history is not at all favorable to Luz’s club, which, remember, is in a sporting crisis, there are three consecutive games without a win – it even allowed FC Porto to cut the deficit from 10 to four points in the I League.
In European qualifiers, Benfica only twice went through a scenario similar to the current one: losing at home with a difference of two goals in the first leg. And it always failed.
In 1996-1997, in the quarter-finals of the Cup Winners’ Cup, Manuel José’s Benfica hosted Fiorentina in Luz, where Rui Costa, now president of the eagles, strangely played. The final result dictated a 0-2 in favor of the Italians and a thorny mission for the second leg. On March 20, 1997, the Eagles were still dreaming, with Edgar scoring on 22″. But the scoreboard didn’t change and Benfica fell by the wayside.
More recently, a new situation, this time in the quarter-finals of the Champions League. Benfica received and were defeated by Liverpool at Luz 1-3. At Anfield, in the return leg, an epic game by the eagles led by Nélson Veríssimo, which ended with a three-goal draw, failed to prevent elimination from the millionaires’ league.
There are other data that make Benfica’s mission even more statistically complicated. In the entire history of European competitions, Inter have been eliminated only once after winning the first leg by two goals. It was in the 1988-1989 season, in the UEFA Cup. The Milanese won 0-2 against Bayern in Munich and were then defeated 1-3 at home.
Only twice in the entire 90-year history of the Cup/Champions League has a team that lost by two goals at home in the first leg managed to reverse the tie. And one of them involved (by the negative) Benfica, which won 1-3 against Ajax in 1968-69, but would falter in the second leg, losing 3-0 after extra time. The other case came in 2018/19, when Liverpool were beaten 0-2 at home by PSG and then recovered in Paris (1-3).
Lions with a positive history
Sporting, on the other hand, statistically have several examples to hang on to and have a less complicated task than Benfica in the beginning because they play at home on Thursday and lost in the first leg of the Europa League quarter-finals by the margin minimum.
In the history of qualifiers in European competitions, the Lions have already faced the same situation 12 times and managed to come back on seven – were eliminated against Carl Zeiss Jena (1970), Rangers (1971), Bastia (1977), Barcelona (1986) and Real Madrid (1994). But they were happy against Sunderland (1973), Dinamo Zagreb (1982), Athletic Bilbao (1985), Kalmar (1987), Celtic (1993), Newcastle (2005) and Everton (2010).
The game against Newcastle, on 14 April 2015, is a good example of what the Lions can cling to, not least because they are a high quality opponent, just like Juventus are now.
After a 1-0 defeat at St. James Park, the Lions received the Magpies coached by Graeme Souness and where striker Alan Shearer was the biggest star. Alvalade witnessed an epic night for the team led by José Peseiro, a categorical 4-1 winwith goals from Niculae, Sá Pinto, Beto and Rochemback.
A triumph that took the Lions to the UEFA Cup final of the 2014-15 season – they then knocked out AZ Alkmaar in the semi-final – which they eventually lost (irony of fate) in the final played in Alvalade against the Russians of CSKA Moscow 3-1.
Source: DN
