Benfica and manager Bruno Lage have officially announced what has been rumoured to have been done for weeks now, they club and manager have agreed on a new contract that will run until the end of the 2023/24 season. Bruno Lage who was a former assistant manager of current Rio Ave manager Carlos Carvalhal at Sheffield Wednesday and Swansea City, he joined Benfica last season to manage the clubs B squad until the dismissal of Rui Vitoria in January were he was moved into the intern role with the main squad. Lage's early performances with the club earned had the intern tag removed and he went on to turn the club around and win the Portuguese League. Bruno Lage's record with Benfica across all competitions is 40 wins, five draw and eight losses. Bruno Lage will now earn €2M per season to manage Benfica and his buy out clause remains at €20M. Lage currently has Benfica in top spot in the Portuguese League after 13 weeks of the season and will manage Benfica through another Europa League campaign in February.
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.
