Benfica decided to change ten of the clubs starting eleven from the weekends league victory over Maritimo as they went into their second group game of the Taca da Liga against Covilha. Benfica opened their Taca da Liga campaign with a scoreless draw against Guimaraes and were not able to secure a road victory over second division side Covilha with only a late Jota goal earning Benfica a point in a 1-1 draw. Benfica now sit with two points from two games and will be hoping that tomorrows Setubal-Guimaraes encounter ends in a draw thus having all four group members sitting with two points each going into the final round of games on December 21. Raul de Tomas' struggles continued in this game as Benfica's biggest summer acquisition continues to falter, Jota scored his first goal ever for Benfica's main squad and Zivkovic came in as a substitute for his first appearance of the season. Bruno Lage will need to regroup the squad as they get set to kick off Week 13 on Friday against Boavista.
Bruno Lage hit his 50th game in charge of Benfica across all competitions this weekend and with Benfica's four goal performance against Maritimo this weekend, Lage became the second fastest Benfica manager to get to 100 goals in league action taking only 30 games to hit the century mark. Hungarian manager Lajos Czeiler is the only manager to get to 100 goals quicker then Lage when he did it in only 26 games back in 1963/64. Benfica are currently in negotiations to extend Lage's contract with the club and up his current salary of €500K to €1M. Lage's deal will also include a €20M buy out clause to protect the club from losing their current manager to any other clubs from around Europe.
Benfica cruised to a 4-0 victory over Maritimo in the clubs first game on its new surface after a new pitch was installed since the clubs last home game on November 2. Benfica kicked off the game quickly as a Chiquinho attempt just two minutes in was stopped by Maritimo keeper Abedzadeh. Maritimo would get their opportunity just a minute later when Daizen Maeda's shot was easily stopped by Vlachodimos but it would not take Benfica long to open the scoring as league leading scorer Pizzi would tap a Vinicius pass through the legs of the Maritimo keeper to give Benfica the lead just seven minutes into the match. Pizzi would then return the favour after being sent in alone by Taarabt he would find a wide open Vinicius to double Benfica's lead at the 17 minute mark. Maritimo looked to cut the lead in half but a Douglas Grolli header off a set piece would be sent wide of the Benfica net. Benfica would add another at the 31 minute mark when a Pizzi hard cross would evade the keeper and end up on the foot of Vinicius, his shot would deflect in off Maritimo defender Grolli. The goal was originally awarded to Vinicius but has since been awarded as an own goal in what can be considered a strange decision by the league as the shot was clearly going towards goal when it was deflected. Benfica almost made it four but Vinicius was unable to direct a Pizzi pass on net. Vinicius would get one more chance to score before the end of the half but his goal would be called back due to an offside. Benfica would go into the half up 3-0.
The second half would see young right back Tomas Tavares enter the game for Andre Almeida after the teams captain looked to have re-aggravated his thigh injury but the Benfica attack continued and Chiquinho would get the first real chance of the half when sent in
