Benfica.
Just talking about the Portuguese giants can make Juventus fans feel uneasy. It’s easy to see why. Coming into Wednesday’s Champions League league phase match between the two teams, Juve lost seven
of nine games with only one win.
(Writer’s note: In my post-draw piece in September, I wrote that Juve had never beaten Benfica in a competitive match. For whatever reason, the web site I used for that data had omitted the quarterfinal tie between the two teams in the 1992-93 UEFA Cup, the second leg of which Juve won 3-0. I regretfully fess up to that error
.)Making the game even more daunting were the circumstances it came in. It was the start of a huge week that would also see Juve play Napoli and Monaco. If Juve could take this game, it would mathematically seal them at least a place in the playoff round, taking a whole lot of pressure off the league phase finale in Monaco seven days later. Benfica, on the other hand, were fighting for their lives in the competition, needing a win to give themselves control of their own destiny in their final game, against Real Madrid.
With so much at stake and so much bad history against Benfica, it would be understandable for most Juventini to approach this game feeling a bit of indigestion. So too would it be totally justifiable for that indigestion to increase to full-on heartburn by halftime, when Benfica had played ever so slightly better but had spurned repeated chances gifted to them by constant Juventus turnovers close to their own box. In the first 10 minutes of the second half, you probably weren’t feeling much better.
But then something happened. A goal by Khéphren Thuram and then another by Weston McKennie less than 10 minutes later blew away those worries and instead gave the fans something to cheer about. When the grass gave out under Vangelis Pavlidis’ feet at the penalty spot 10 minutes from time, it felt like it was over. After 33 years of being got by their bogey team in Europe, the Bianconeri had finally taken Benfica out, with a 2-0 scoreline that was identical to the one that Benfica had won by at the J Stadium last year to knock Juve out of the seed pot in the playoff.
Curse breaking is sweet. So is revenge.
Luciano Spalletti didn’t make much in the way of changes to his lineup from Saturday’s confounding loss to Cagliari. The only alterations were the return of the two men he’d rested in that match. Dusan Vlahovic and Daniele Rugani were still out injured (I’ve made the executive decision to stop mentioning Arkadiusz Milik until we get proof of life). Michele Di Gregorio backstopped the defense of Pierre Kalulu, Bremer, Lloyd Kelly, and Andrea Cambiaso. Manuel Locatelli and Thuram made up the double pivot, while McKennie, Fabio Miretti, and Kenan Yildiz supported Jonathan David in attack.
Fans at the J Stadium got an always appreciated chance to scream at José Mourinho, who now made his living on the Benfica bench. He was missing a laundry list of players from his first team, including Dodi Lukebakio, Richard Rios, Alexander Bah, Joao Veloso, Nuno Felix, Samuel Soares, and Joshua Wynder. Mourinho countered with his own 4-2-3-1, with Anatoliy Trubin at its base. Amar Dedic, Nicolás Otamendi, Tomás Araújo, and Samuel Dahl made up the defensive line. Leandro Barreiro and Fredrik Aursnes manned the midfield. The attacking support line behind Pavlidis was a youth showcase, featuring Gianluca Prestianni (19), Heorhii Sudakov (23), and Andreas Schjelderup (21).
Juve kicked off and immediately surged onto the attack. Within five minutes Otamendi had to scramble to clear a cross from Yildiz that otherwise would’ve dropped perfectly onto the head of David. Benfica looked to counter and were the first to test one of the goalkeepers when Sudakov went from range. Juve had their own in 60 seconds in a rather incredible sequence in which Cambiaso got too close to Yildiz and tripped him, only for the young winger to recover, dribble himself into position, and whip a low drive to the far post that Trubin parried around the post with one hand.
After around 10 minutes, Benfica began to work their way into the match. But Juve were still making their opportunities. In the 18th minute Locatelli found Yildiz with a gorgeous diagonal switch that set the young Turk to again go for the goal, but this time whizzed it about a foot and a half past the far stick.
It was shortly after that play that the mistakes began to creep in. Perhaps they were unnerved a little by not making the most of their chances, perhaps Mourinho changed something to give them a different look, but as the second half progressed Juve were harried into mistake after mistake as they tried to play the ball out from the back. The worst came in the 23rd minute, when a terrible pass by Locatelli set up Sudakov from the top of the box. His strong cross-goal shot was parried by Di Gregorio, and for a heart-stopping moment it looked like it would only go straight to Pavlidis — but Kelly was fighting the Greek striker all the way and beat him to clear it.
Prestianni fired over off a similar giveaway two minutes later, ringing some serious alarm bells. Juve still had some teeth, and Miretti had a great chance to open the scoring from a corner but headed over. Two minutes before halftime it was David’s turn to have a chance with his head, but completely fluffed a pretty open shot, sending Juve into the break with a few jeers on their way down the tunnel.
Spalletti clearly learned from one of his mistakes in Sardinia over the weekend, and he brought in Francisco Conceição to replace Miretti coming out of the break. Conceição immediately started creating some issues for Benfica with his shiftiness, but Juve’s baffling errors in their own half persisted, and overall it was still the visitors who looked like they might score first.
But Juve had other ideas. McKennie had a golden chance to open the scoring in the 54th minute but put the ball right at Turbin, but less than a minute later Thuram was the one who put his stamp on things. He sent a neat no-look pass to David, who held off his man just enough to be able to leave the ball for the returning Frenchman. Thuram quickly dribbled into the left channel and fired a low shot that skipped into the net at Turbin’s near post to net his first career Champions League goal.
Juve nearly dropped their focus almost immediately, but Locatelli slid in to block Schjelderup. But the bobble was only temporary, and soon it was McKennie who extended their lead. After Locatelli fed David with a neat entry pass, the two North Americans made a quick exchange of passes that left McKennie in behind a gaggle of defenders, and he easily beat Turbin to roll into the net.
Both teams continued to look for more offense, Juve to put the game well and truly to bed, Benfica to create themselves a lifeline. Aursnes thumped a header off the post off a corner kick, while a bizarre sequence saw Turbin poke a ball that deflected off his own defender off the inside of his post, with the rebound somehow evading both McKennie and Loïs Openda.
But with 10 minutes left it looked like Benfica had picked up that lifeline. It hadn’t been spotted at first by referee Serdar Gözübüyük (that’s entirely too many umlauts), but Bremer had kicked Barreiro in the foot at the top of the box as the two both went after the ball. A quick intervention by VAR summoned the Dutch ref to the monitor, where he duly gave the penalty. Pavlidis, who had scored in Benfica’s win in Turin a year ago, stepped up to take it—and skidded on the grass as he got to the ball, skewing the ball five or six yards wide to the right.
The mishap drained Benfica of any fighting spirit they had left. They did grab a couple of corners in the final eight minutes or so, one of which led to a second-effort header by old Juve prospect Enzo Barrenechea that was far too soft to do any damage. After five minutes of uneventful stoppage time, Gözübüyük blew his whistle for the final time, giving Juve a huge win on many levels ahead of their big upper-level clash with Napoli over the weekend.
