Benfica 1-4 Chelsea: Huge weather delay precedes comprehensive Chelsea victory | OneFootball

Chelsea belatedly defeated Benfica to advance to the quarter-finals of the Club World Cup, but the real story was the mammoth delay which stood between the 86th minute and the 87th.

With news of ‘severe weather,’ in the form of lightning strikes nearly 10 kilometres away from the Bank of America Stadium in Charlotte, the game was abandoned with four minutes left, and it wouldn’t be restarted for another 116 minutes.

Once the game did restart, Benfica managed the unthinkable by pulling level in added time; Reece James had scored a terrific free kick before the disruption, and Ángel Di María took the game to extra-time with a penalty goal in the dying embers.

Substitute Christopher Nkunku restored Chelsea’s lead with his goal in the 108th minute after Gianluca Prestianni was sent off for a second yellow card, and goals from Pedro Neto and Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall put the contest to bed – but the significance of the result was overshadowed by the circumstances which led to it.

As it happened

In stark contrast to the games featuring South American and Asian sides at the Club World Cup, the noticeably scarcely filled Bank of America Stadium demonstrated the Eurocentric view of the tournament: the intrigue just isn’t there in the same way. It’s noticeable also that this stadium, not 12 months ago, hosted a crowd of just under 63,000 for Chelsea’s preseason friendly against Real Madrid. For this game against Benfica in the knockout stages of a major tournament, the attendance read 25,000.

Alas, there was a spot in the last eight of that tournament on the line, and Chelsea made it clear very quickly that they were going to be the side intent on creating goalmouth action.

Enzo Maresca’s side kept 60% of the ball in the first half and took seven shots. Marc Cucurella was consistently the outlet, and he should have scored twice. First, he tried to curl a shot off his right foot into the top corner only to be denied by the head of a perfectly placed Antonio Silva on the goal line. Then, on his stronger left, his shot destined for the near corner was denied by a remarkably strong right wrist from Anatoliy Trubin.

Benfica, for their part, seldom crossed the halfway line with any real intent. Robert Sánchez was largely unbothered throughout the first half.

Still, Chelsea would have to wait for the second period to turn on-pitch dominance into a goal, and they had to rely on a set piece.

In the 64th minute, they won a free kick from a crossing position, but that’s not how James saw it. He elected to try and catch out Trubin, and his plan worked to perfection; the shot was whipped with pinpoint precision into the bottom left corner, just out of reach of Trubin, the Ukrainian positioned with a delivery into the box in mind.

With a little over 10 minutes left, new boy Liam Delap thought he’d doubled the lead when he took the ball round the goalkeeper before slotting into an empty net, but his run had been just mistimed, and the decision of offside was made very quickly.

And then, with four minutes remaining until Chelsea secured progression to the quarter-finals, the game was brought to a halt with the threat of lightning in bound. That halt lasted for 116 long minutes.

If this tournament is, as FIFA view it, a trial run for next summer’s World Cup in North America, the weather is certainly the factor of most concern. And it isn’t just going to improve. As far as global climate is concerned, the unusual is now the expected, erraticism will be the norm, and the disruption of sporting fixtures may well be the least of our concerns.

As for this game, the few fans who remained were rewarded with what their patience deserved: drama.

In the 93rd minute, Nicolás Otamendi headed the ball into the outstretched arm of Malo Gusto from close quarters inside the box, and a penalty was the result.

Up stepped the elder statesman, Di María, to slot his spot-kick down the middle of the goal with Sánchez sent the wrong way. Finally, the game had its second goal, two-hours-and-26-minutes after its first. Sadly for the Argentine, this would ultimately be his final goal in a Benfica shirt, with a return to boyhood side Rosario Central in bound.

He could’ve doubled up right at the end, too, with another shot, this time blocked on impact. But in the end, the inevitable: after a delay longer than a game of football, extra-time would come.

Immediately, substitute Gianluca Prestianni decided to keep the dramatic flare alive by getting sent off after picking up his second yellow card for a late challenge on Levi Colwill. Benfica, who had pulled themselves level against all odds and after such a rollercoaster of an afternoon, would have to fend with 10 men for the remainder of the game.

Shots came and went. Kerem Aktürkoğlu denied by Sánchez. Gusto denied by Trubin. Di María denied by the leg of Tosin Adarabioyo. Cole Palmer denied by Trubin. Di María denied by Sánchez. It only took the longest imaginable delay for the game to burst into life.

Eventually, Chelsea would turn a shot into a goal. Trubin, who had saved so much, did precisely that in denying Moisés Caicedo in the 108th minute, but the ball squirmed underneath him. Otamendi scrambled to keep the it from crossing the line, but it sat perfectly for Nkunku to blast into the roof of the net. The Blues were a man up, and now a goal up.

With a little over five minutes to go, Neto was released and given a footrace against Otamendi: there was only one winner. The Portuguese winger had no issues slotting the ball past Trubin of the Portuguese giants, and the outcome was finally all-but confirmed.

If it wasn’t over then, it certainly was three minutes later. Dewsbury-Hall finished the job with an almost identical goal, Otamendi left for dead again. Finally, it was over.

After all of that, Chelsea ended where they were before the delay: ahead, and through to the quarter-finals of a Club World Cup which has given FIFA much to think about. They’ll face Palmeiras in the final eight. Weather permitting.

The lineups

SLB: Trubin; Aursnes, Silva, Otamendi, Dahl; Barreiro, Florentino, Kökçü; Di María, Pavlidis, Schjelderup