There was football this Tuesday in Lisbon. And beautiful. So obviously, local supporters will prefer to forget as quickly as possible this enormous disillusionment and this stunning defeat conceded at the last minute against FC Barcelona (4-5). But their Blaugrana counterparts are not ready to forget what they saw during this meeting on the seventh day of the league phase of the Champions League.
The duel did not take long to get going and it was the Lisbonites who opened the ball through Vangelis Pavlidis (1-0, 2nd). On fire, the Greek striker then offered himself a real personal festival to score a hat-trick in half an hour (22nd and 30th). In the meantime, Robert Lewandowski still converted a penalty in favor of visitors underwater (13th).
Hard for Benfica
Trailing 3-1 at the break, Hansi Flick's men came back with the desire to do well in the second half and even managed to reduce the gap through Raphinha shortly after the hour mark (3-2, 64th ). But another blow to the back of the head for them with a csc signed Ronald Araujo (4-2, 68th). End of game for Barça? Nay! The Catalan team will then offer spectators a completely crazy end to the match.
Lewandowski, again and again from the penalty spot, will give some hope to his family (4-3, 78th). Ten minutes later, Eric Garcia burst into the area to score with a header and equalize (4-4, 87th). Not enough for the visitors, clearly eager to win. And their enthusiasm will allow them since Raphinha will slam the winning goal in stoppage time (4-5, 90th + 6). Sixth victory in seven C1 matches and second place almost assured for the Blaugrana even before the last day. For Benfica, on the other hand, it's a grimace with an eighteenth place which means that they will have to look for a play-off place on January 29 in Turin, against Juventus.
