It was a strange starting XI for Benfica who once again decided to go conservative on the attack from the wing back position, starting Tomas Araujo at right back and Samuel Dahl in for suspended Alvaro in his first start at left back in months.
Barcelona where relentless in their attack especially in the first half and Bruno Lage showed that he clearly could still not find the proper recipe against Barca in their third encounter of the competition this season.
Benfica killer Raphinha opened the scoring just eleven minutes into the contest before Benfica got an equalizer from Otamendi just two minutes later. 17 year old wonderkid Yamal would give Barca the lead once again just fourteen minutes later and Raphinha would get his second of the contest and fifth of the competition against Benfica just before the half.
The second half saw no changes from Lage to start the half, which left many scratching their heads and made you think if Lage actually knew the club needed to score three goals, just get into additional time.
Benfica had an Aursnes goal called back for an offside in the build up to the play, one of nine offsides the club would see called against them on this night.
Benfica in the end lived to regret not pulling off a victory over ten man Barcelona in the first leg, where they could just not get the ball past Barcelona keeper Szczesny. Benfica should receive in the vicinity of €65M total for making it to this stage of the competition.
The club will not turn their attention to capturing the Portuguese League title and are still in the Taca de Portugal competition.
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