Real Madrid returned to Da Luz and nothing was like the last time. Arbeloa’s team defeated a Benfica that could not find a way to hurt them with an exercise of enormous seriousness and a wonderful goal from Vinicius, who stopped the game due to a racist insult from Prestianni. They return after clearing and with notable success to reach the round of 16 of the Champions League next Wednesday at the Bernabéu, where Mourinho, expelled, will not be able to sit on the bench in his old home again.
0
Anatoly Trubin, Amar Dedic, Nicolás Otamendi, Tomás Araújo, Samuel Dahl, Andreas Schjelderup (Heorhii Sudakov, 73 min), Fredrik Aursnes (Sidny Cabral, 79 min), Rafa (Richard Ríos, 73 min), Leandro Barreiro, Gianluca Prestianni (Dodi Lukébakio, min. 80) y Vangelis Pavlidis
1
Thibaut Courtois, Trent Alexander-Arnold, Álvaro Carreras (Dani Carvajal, min. 98), Antonio Rüdiger, Dean Huijsen, Federico Valverde, Eduardo Camavinga (Thiago Pitarch, min. 93), Aurélien Tchouaméni, Arda Güler (Brahim Díaz, min. 85), Kylian Mbappé y Vinícius Junior
Goals
0-1 min. 49: Vinicius Junior
Referee François Letexier
yellow cards
Vinicius Junior (min. 49), Gianluca Prestianni (min. 77), dos Santos Mourinho Félix (min. 84), Mbappé (min. 86), Sudakov (min. 91)
red cards
dos Santos Mourinho Félix (min. 84)
Only 20 days before, Madrid had crashed in Lisbon with a somewhat twilight match, like a team that was melting, overwhelmed by the intensity and desire that Mourinho instilled in his troops. But more than an ending, that failed raid on Da Luz functioned as a turning point. Arbeloa maneuvered the following weeks looking for a structure that would resist the hammering that had unraveled them in Portugal. So much so that his mentor said the day before that he had discarded that last game of the league in which they left Madrid out of the top 8. Nothing was the same anymore.
The Salamanca coach built a compact midfield with Valverde, Tchouameni and Camavinga, and happy with Güler’s imagination. From there he has built a solidity that did not even appear on January 28 in Lisbon. Real looked comfortable in a brave duel, with a lot of clashes and few whistles from a referee dedicated to raw, scratchy fluidity. Mourinho’s squad tried to replicate the cramps of the other time, the volleys with which he responded to each Madrid loss, the blows with which he wore them down. But there was no where. Tchouameni was deployed, sweeping the center with devastating forcefulness. Not a crumb escaped his marshal’s authority. Insurmountable. Pavlidis and Rafa barely breathed there.
There were no longer any opportunities for Carreras, who was calmer on his second visit to his old stadium. Camavinga accompanied him to fill any gap and Prestianni, an indecipherable nightmare in January on that side, disappeared. Until the incident with Vinicius, there were doubts as to whether he had left the locker room.
Mechanisms that had burst 20 days before were working, and also the same as always. The usual thing is Courtois. Aursnes found a space to take a long shot and when the Belgian was already moving towards where he was going to fall, the ball touched a defender and changed direction. Almost in the air, Courtois managed to rectify, throw himself to the other side and block the ball.
Madrid barely allowed anything else. He was sinking Benfica. The temperature of the boiler rose. The ball ran faster, more and more often with the first touch, closer and closer to the Portuguese goal. And a shower of shots began to rain down on Trubin. The Ukrainian, , emerged this time to deactivate the battery of chances. Until Vinicius appeared, who was spending the night tied up by Dedic. The Brazilian had tried outside, inside, accelerating and braking. The Bosnian was not confused. But after a dribble he saw that he seemed to be losing his footing, he pressed the trigger and placed the ball in the far corner.
The goal seemed to announce the beginning of Benfica’s dismantling. Madrid’s machinery flew without friction. But the night got muddy after the Brazilian’s celebratory dance, some clashes between rivals and Vinicius’ alarm to the referee. He ran to tell him that Prestianni had called him a “monkey”, the referee activated the anti-racism protocol and the game broke up. The Madrid players retired to the bench, threatening to leave.
They picked up the thread ten minutes later and Mourinho managed to break Real’s solidity a little with fresh legs. They were able to run, they gave Courtois a scare and Arbeloa responded with Brahim, Thiago and Carvajal, who positioned himself on the left. Enough to secure a reparative victory that brings them very close to the round of 16.
