Vinicius Jr has the last laugh as lacklustre Real Madrid sort out Mourinho and Benfica | OneFootball

Vinicius Jr scored, Vinicius Jr celebrated, and Real Madrid made their way to the last 16 of the Champions League again, as they have every year since 1997.

You’d have to have a heart of stone not to enjoy Vinicius Jr getting that moment after the week he’s had, but it was a vanishingly rare moment of class and quality in a confusingly poor game of football between two teams whose names will always be indelibly linked with the very earliest days of the European Cup.

But this was an odd game to watch at a curiously subdued Bernabeu on a night when Benfica started brightly and threatened mischief before fading away to nothing against a Real Madrid team absolutely there for the taking.

Fair to say that any team shorn of your Kylian Mbappes and your Rodrygos and the Jude Bellinghams of this world is going to feel it, but it’s still jarring to see a Real Madrid team look this workmanlike and workaday. This was more perspiration than inspiration, and there wasn’t a lot of perspiration.

We’re not entirely sure whether Alvaro Arbeloa is asking them to play like this, or the players are just making it up as they go along, but this is a deeply disorganised football team at this time. There’s nothing wrong with a fluid attacking shape, but there has to be some underlying structure.

And we’re definitely sure the fluid defensive approach Real adopted in the first 15 minutes is unwise. Trent Alexander-Arnold settled and became one of Madrid’s better players on the night, for what that’s worth, but where precisely he thought he was off to for Benfica’s opener remains a mystery.

Right now it doesn’t matter, of course. This patched-up team, lacking quality, structure, direction and balance, was able to do enough to muddle through. Members of the walking wounded may return before the next round in a couple of weeks’ time.

But on this evidence, they must. There is simply no way Real Madrid can make it 16 titles like this. Benfica were good value for their early lead on the night that levelled the tie. Who knows what might have happened had they been able to hold that lead for more than a couple of minutes.

The nature of the goal they gave away to get Real back in front in the tie will irritate Jose Mourinho as much as the sight of an opposition goalscorer daring to celebrate. A sloppy, blind pass from the vastly experienced should-know-better Nicolas Otamendi triggered a move that was smartly finished by Aurelian Tchouameni.

It was very Real Madrid, we suppose, that the only two real moments of quality they were able to muster on the night ended in sparkling goals, because the second goal, created by Fedi Valverde’s ability to both see and then deliver a high-tariff pass for Vini to run on and finish, was also a lovely thing seemingly crowbarred in from an entirely different game of football to the rest of what was, largely, dross.

Benfica had, perhaps, exhausted their supply of miracles with that absurd conclusion to the group stage against these same opponents. But there won’t be many times when you can go out of the Champions League to Real Madrid and really feel like it was a big opportunity missed. Had any amount of time passed after that deserved opening goal then the tension inside the stadium could have had a significant impact on an already wildly unconvincing Madrid display.