Monday, November 11, 2019

Benfica win to stay a top Portugal heading to break

Benfica Blog
Benfica traveled to the Azores for their Week 11 encounter against Santa Clara as they looked to maintain their top spot in the league going into the International break. Benfica and their rock star arrival in Sao Miguel started off on the wrong foot when Santa Clara opened the scoring 18 minutes into the game as Carlos beat out Andre Almeida to a mid cross by Rafael Ramos to head Santa Clara into the lead. Benfica's first half was one of their poorer performances of the season as they struggled to complete passes and ended the half trailing by one with their only clear scoring chance being a Ruben Dias header in additional time at the keeper.
The second half started with striker Carlos Vinicius entering the game in place of Florentino as Benfica looked to add to their attack but it was Santa Clara who would get the first scoring chance of the half at the 50th minute when Rashid's outside shot was stopped by keeper Vladchodimos. 

Benfica would then equalize just four minutes later as Pizzi's low cross went by a crowd of players ending up on the feet of substitute Vinicius who directed it into an empty net and the game was level. The next twenty minutes of the half was a back and forth affair with no real scoring threats, that was until the 78th minute when a poor clear by Santa Clara defender Cesar hit Andre Almeida and deflected to the feet of Seferovic who broke down the middle finding Pizzi to the left and the league's top scorer would make no mistake sending a low shot past keeper Marco to give Benfica the lead. The goal would energize Benfica and they looked to add to it just a minute later when Seferovic would take a hard shot just inside the box that was handled by Marco. Santa Clara though sent a chill through the Benfica faithful when Ukra's low shot from a long Rashid cross would go just inches from the far left post in additional time but that was as close as it would get as Benfica would come from behind to defeat Santa Clara 2-1. Benfica will now return to league action on November 30 after when they host Madeira club Maritimo.

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