Belenenses v Benfica: Goalkeeper Joao Monteiro gets 'injured' to get farcical match called off | OneFootball

Belenenses SAD versus Benfica on Saturday evening in Portugal was sadly a complete farce.

A Covid-19 outbreak in the squad meant that Belenenses could only field nine players for the match, with two of them being goalkeepers and the other seven U21 players.

Benfica were pretty much at full-strength for the game and unsurprisingly, they absolutely dominated proceedings from the first whistle.

When the half-time interval came around, the Lisbon-based side were 7-0 ahead and it could have been way more.

An own-goal was scored after just 25 seconds, with Haris Seferovic (x2), Darwin Nunez (x3) and Julian Weigl getting on the scoresheet for Benfica.

The Belenenses team then didn't return to the pitch for the second half for quite some time and when they did, only seven players emerged.

And just seconds after they took the kick-off for the second half, Joao Monteiro - the goalkeeper who was playing outfield - went down with an 'injury' after smashing the ball into touch.

Whether he was actually injured we don't know, but the fact he was unable to continue meant that the game was quickly called off by the referee, as a team is not allowed to play with just six players.

Take a look at footage of the crazy scenes on Saturday evening here...

Video: Belenenses vs Benfica called off after player suffers injury

Have you ever seen anything like it in a professional football match?!

The Liga NoS fixture should never have gone ahead in the first place and the footballing authorities out in Portugal certainly have some explaining to do.

Manchester City star and former Benfica player Bernardo Silva gave his thoughts on the farcical situation through his official Twitter account and he was not happy one bit.

Bernardo Silva's tweet

The silky midfielder wrote on the social media platform: "What is this? Am I the only one who doesn't understand why the game hasn't been postponed?"

Don't worry, Bernardo, you weren't the only one left bemused by the decision to let the game be played for a full 45 minutes...