Benfica beat Rio Ave and stay unbeaten in the Portuguese league | OneFootball

This Saturday, Benfica defeated Rio Ave by 2-0 at the Estádio do Rio Ave FC, in Portugal, for the 18th round of the Portuguese Championship. The goals were scored by midfielder Leandro Barreiro and defender Andreas Ndoj, own goal.

  See this photo on Instagram   A post shared by Sport Lisboa e Benfica (@slbenfica)

Standings Situation

With the win, Benfica remains in third place with 45 points in 18 games, three points behind second-placed Sporting. Meanwhile, Rio Ave suffers its sixth defeat in the competition and sits in 11th place with 20 points.

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📋 Match Summary

🟢RIO AVE 0X2 BENFICA 🔴

🏆 Competition: Portuguese Championship – 18th Round 🏟️ Venue: Estádio do Rio Ave FC, Portugal 📅 Date: January 17, 2026 (Wednesday) ⏰ Time: 5:30 PM (Brasília time)

🟨 Yellow Cards: Schjelderup and Samuel Dahl (Benfica); Ndoj (Rio Ave); 🟥 Red Cards: none

Goals

How the match went

The first half was completely dominated by Benfica. At 16 minutes, Leandro Barreira received a cross from Sudakov and headed strongly to open the scoring. At 24, Benfica's right back Dedíc made a great individual play down the right side and, when he crossed the ball into the box, the opposing defender Ndoj deflected it into his own net, lobbing the goalkeeper and increasing the lead for the Lisbon club.

The second half went by without major chances for either side. Rio Ave even managed to pull one back with Clayton at 23 minutes, but the goal was disallowed for offside by VAR.

Upcoming matches

Rio Ave

Benfica

This article was translated into English by Artificial Intelligence. You can read the original version in 🇧🇷 here.