Benfica will go into the round of 32 of Europa League play as one of sixteen seeded teams after today's final results of Champions League action. Benfica finished in fourth out of the eight 3rd place finishing teams and will be rewarded with avoiding the links of Inter Milan, Ajax, Sevilla, Espanyol, Red Bull Salzburg and Celtic at this time, with the last round of games set to take place tomorrow in the Europa League group stage another nine clubs will be added to the top seed. Benfica would also avoid any Portuguese club in the draw at this stage of tournament play. Sporting and Braga have already clinched a place in the round of 32 while FC Porto will clinch a spot with a victory or a Young Boys loss, Porto would also get through if both clubs draw their matches. Guimaraes is the other Portuguese club but they have already been eliminated from moving on. The draw for the round of 32 will take place December 16 in Nyon, Switzerland with the two legged encounter taking place in February.
Benfica came out to play tonight in Lisbon and in their last game of their Champions League group pulled off a 3-0 victory to move out of the basement and into third spot clinching a place in next years round of 32 Europa League. This Champions League campaign is going to be looked back as a what if campaign with Benfica not dressing a strong starting XI at the beginning of the tournament and giving up potential points that could have seen the club finish in the top two spots or even top the group. The club looked to not have taken the tournament start seriously and potentially chose to display their Seixal academy players as the likes of Nuno Tavares, Jota, Tomas Tavares, Florentino, Gedson and David Tavares all earning minutes during the tournament and not one of them starting regularly without an injury to one of Benfica's regular XI. Pizzi lead the way for Benfica with a goal and an assist, Franco Cervi opened the scoring for the club and a second half own goal was all that was required by Benfica who dominated for long stages of the game. Benfica's blown two goal lead after the 90th minute mark in game five against Leipzig will haunt the club going into the holidays as based on the final group standings the club would have finished second. This is hoping that Benfica decide to dress a stronger XI going forward and make a run in the Europa League as they get set to continue their play in UEFA this season.
Benfica go into their final group game of the Champions League needing a victory by at least two goals to at least have a chance of moving into the Europa League against Zenit but if Leipzig defeat Lyon then a win by Benfica by any margin gets them into Europa League, so basically to make it easy Benfica need a win. Benfica will play Zenit at home at 8:00pm WEST.
They will dress 18 players from the list below.
Keepers- Vlachodimos, Ivan Zlobin
Defenders- Ferro, Alex Grimaldo, Tomas Tavares, Jardel, Nuno Tavares, Ruben Dias
Midfielders- Pizzi, Franco Cervi, Gedson Fernandes, Gabriel, Taarabt, Chiquinho, Samaris, Caio Lucas
Forwards- Carlos Vinicius, Seferovic, Jota, Raul de Tomas
