Benfica leave it late to beat Gil Vicente 3-1 with two late goals (videos) | OneFootball

Benfica beat Gil Vicente 3-1 this Sunday in a match counting for the 6th round of the Liga Portugal Betclic. After a hard-fought game, the Eagles overcame Luís Pinto’s side at the Estádio da Luz, with two goals from Vangelis Pavlidis and one from Gianluca Prestianni.

Surprisingly, Gil Vicente opened the scoring. In the 8th minute, Gil Martins carried the ball down the left channel, took advantage of the lack of pressure and picked out Héctor Hernández in the box, who touched it past Samuel Soares to make it 1-0. The young goalkeeper - who is close to renewing his contract - was not without blame.

In the 19th minute, Marco Silva’s side had a clear chance to restore parity. Daniel Banjaqui won the ball high up on the right, fed Prestianni and he crossed into the six-yard box, where Pavlidis appeared only to head over.

To Benfica’s delight, the equaliser did come. A chipped ball was played into the left side of the box in search of Prestianni; the Argentine tried to score, the defence failed to clear properly and the ball fell to Pavlidis. One-on-one with Lucão, the Greek lifted the ball over him to make it 1-1 in the 29th minute. The score remained unchanged until half-time.

After the restart, Benfica found it difficult to break into the final third against the Barcelos side. With João Palhinha and Fredrik Aursnes already on the pitch, Pavlidis took advantage of a loose ball on the right side of the box after a Banjaqui cross, but his shot was brilliantly saved by Lucão.

After the cooling break (75’), Benfica went in front. Aursnes received the ball on the right side of the box and was “brought down” by Tidjany Touré. Vangelis Pavlidis stepped up for the penalty and made no mistake to score for 2-1. Prestianni did not want to be left behind and scored a stunner in the 90+3rd minute, assisted by debutant Claudio Echeverri.

In their next clash, Benfica face Milan next Wednesday, 16 September. The match, counting for the first round of the Europa League league phase, against the side coached by Ruben Amorim, will be played at 20:00 at San Siro.

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