The 38th title in Benfica’s history is special because of Rui Costa. As the team defeated Santa Clara 3-0, once the clock had passed 90 minutes, the president stood in the stands and unrolled the scarf with the name and symbol of the club duly engraved, with the number 38 and the sentence “National Champion 2022-2023”. As soon as he heard the referee’s whistle, the president gave in to the emotion of the “38” in the history of the Benfica emblem, a title that will remain in the heralds as the one won by a player-president.
In the dressing room, flanked by captain Otamendi and coach Roger Schmidt, Rui Costa, who won the 1993-94 championship as a player, thanked the side for honoring the “responsibility” to “give the associative masses what they wanted” most “. “As president of Benfica, thank you for the immense joy you have given to all Benfica fans, for your work, sacrifice, to the staff around the team, without them you would not have been able to reach the level where you thank you for you since the 1st. On the second day of the day, they believed that we would be national champions, and thank you on behalf of the Benfica people. We are national champions, people!”, he said before singing the national anthem Be a Benfica fan next to the players.
At the usual dressing room party, António Silva (one of the highlights of the season, who missed the title match) acted as a reporter for BTV and interviewed this versatile talent, named Aursnes, who shouted “great player” in clear Portuguese. to João Neves, the joker of the last stretch of the championship. After that, the “player adept” as the central defender called himself, passed the microphone to Gonçalo Ramos, who stood out for the huge task of trying to interview the “man who runs away from the cameras all year round”, but Rafa gave prefer one more stay in the shade instead. Florentino, on the other hand, regretted that everyone was celebrating and he was at the anti-doping control.
From the locker room, Roger Schmidt – the first German to give the Eagles a championship, beating Jupp Heynckes – went to the press room. In the end, he said he had already been warned about the spectacular festivities in Marquês de Pombal and remembered names like Eusébio and Chalana… before seeing the players burst into the room to shower him with champagne, singing: “And Benfica are champions!”
The most exuberant moment of the evening was when captain Otamendi (at the end of his contract) lifted the trophy in the middle of Estádio da Luz, launching the party across the country and with its epicenter at Praça do Marquês de Pombal.. The new national champions will be received tomorrow at the town hall by Carlos Moedas. And there are repeaters. Vlachodimos, Grimaldo and the Portuguese Florentino and Rafa are the only ones who were already crowned champions four seasons ago, in the last title of the red wines. João Mário repeats the title he won for Sporting in 2020-21.
Ramos and Taremi fight
Benfica and FC Porto have entered the final round of the 2022/23 I Liga in the battle for the title. With two points left on the table, the eagles knew it was enough to beat Santa Clara to steal the title from the dragons, who received V. Guimarães at the same time. In that “another match for the title”, at Dragão, FC Porto’s opponents were reduced to ten players after the first minute and that threatened to make things easier for the Porto players.
But the more than 65,000 supporters in the stands at Luz didn’t even have time to stir up unrest with the news coming from the north. Gonçalo Ramos made it 1-0 after just seven minutes and the party could begin. A goal that breathed new life into the man who was the league’s top scorer for a long time. He lost status in the last piece of Taremi. For example, the blue and white attacker won the Bola de Prata (22 goals): “Top scorer? I can’t be happy if we’re not champions.”
The win against Santa Clara also saw goals from Rafa (28″) and Grimaldo (60″). The Spanish winger scored a penalty that under normal circumstances would have been taken by either João Mário or Gonçalo Ramos (who fought for the Silver Ball and finished three goals short of Taremi), but which the Spaniard took over and luckily scored in the mix. He took his shirt off and kissed the symbol and got emotional, but he was whistled like few others in Luz when he said goodbye – he’s going to play at Bayer Leverkusen.
In the other game, FC Porto finally repeated Benfica’s result (3-0), but could not avoid handing over the championship trophy to their Lisbon rivals, who finished with 87 points to 85 for the Porto players.
Source: DN
