What a crazy night we had in Luz! A lot of rain (a real deluge), thunder (some of it deafening), three penalties, bizarre goals, a Pavlidis hat-trick and a real bucket of ice water in the last minute dictated an inglorious 5-4 defeat for Benfica in the welcome to Barcelona.
The “eagles” lived a first part of dreamwith the Greek center forward scoring three times, but the second half ended in a nightmare, with Raphinha scoring Barça’s winning goal in the last minute of injury time.
Benfica’s tough defeatwhich complicates the classification of Bruno Lage’s team.
The first shot of the game was from Yamal, but it was the Benfica scoring earlyshowing the strategy for the match: a cross pass to the back of the Barça defense to find Carreras, who immediately crossed into the heart of the penalty area, finding Pavlidis, que concluded categoricallylaunching himself into what seemed to be a great night for him and Benfica.
In a move almost like carbon paper, again with Carreras from the cross, Aursnes almost made it 2-0 soon after, but it was Barça who drewr, in a penalty converted by Lewandowski to punish a foul by Tomás Araújo on Alejandro Balde.
The Catalans grew in the game, but in the first half luck smiled on Benficabecause I knew how to look for it. New ball to the back of the very strong opposing defense, Szczęsny’s incredible failure and Pavlidis just had to play the ball into the back of the empty net.
Motivated, toIt didn’t take long for the “eagles” to reach the third goal. Another excellent move, with the ball passing through several players before Aursnes unmarked, with a delicious touch, Akturkoglu and the Turk finishing overthrown by the unfortunate Szczęsny.
Opportunity for Pavlidis fazer o “hat-trick”which the Greek did not waste, converting the resulting penalty.
Barcelona ended the first half with 71% ball possessionbut it was of no use to him. The start of the second half brought more of the same, with a lot of ball from the Catalans, but few scoring opportunities.
Untilsuddenly, the meeting became absolutely chaotic. A replacement of Trubin’s unfortunate ball allowed Raphinha, almost unintentionally, to reduce to 3-2.
Soon after, Ronald Araújoto prevent Pavlidis from reaching poker, he anticipated the Greek and he put the ball in the back of his own goalputting Benfica back with a two-goal lead.
But the story was far from over. At 76 minutesBarcelona benefited from another penaltyagain converted by Lewandowsk. Ten minutes later, Eric García equalized with a header.
And, in the last play of the match, already beyond the 4 minutes discount given by the referee, following a confusing move (in which the Benfica fans claimed a penalty) in the Barça area, Raphinha took off supersonic and only stopped when it made the final 4-5.
The Game in 5 Facts
1. Abysmal difference in ball possession
Benfica’s strategy was to try to exploit the back of Barcelona’s defense, which was always very high, giving the ball to the opponent, and the Catalans ended the match with 73% possession, increasing this dominance even further in the second half, after the 71% with which they finished the first part.
2. Many actions in the area
Despite having little ball, Benfica managed 22 actions with the ball in Barcelona’s penalty area. Still, far from the 34 achieved by the Catalan team.
3. New maximum number of blatant occasions…and xGoals
So many actions with the ball in the opposing areas ended up resulting in a new record for blatant scoring occasions in a single game in this edition of the Champions League. There were 13 in total (seven for Barcelona, six for Benfica). In such a crazy game, it is no surprise that the xGoals record was also broken: 6.97, combined between the two teams.
4. Passing percentage too low
Benfica missed 65 of the 222 passes they attempted in the game, 26 of which were high-risk. The Eagles’ percentage of hits was just 70.7%, in clear contrast to Barça’s 90.1%, who scored 640 out of 710.
5. Too many losses in the defensive third
Benfica ended the game with 20 ball losses in its defensive third, equaling its maximum in the competition, showing difficulties in playing in the face of Barcelona’s increasing pressure throughout the match.
Best of the Field
The former Sporting and Vitória SC player Raphinha ended up dictating the outcome of the match with Barcelona’s winning goal in the last play of the game, after having scored another almost fortuitously.
In addition to the brace, he also showed great dribbling skills, received a total of 12 progressive passes and was also the player with the most defensive actions in the opposing midfield (five), as well as the number of shots made (seven, with only three taking place).
Summary
