Benfica reach Europa League play-off, but miss Schmidt's record | OneFootball

Benfica did the bare minimum by securing a place in the Europa League play-off, but the 1-1 draw against Hearts in Edinburgh prevented Marco Silva’s side from claiming a third consecutive win in UEFA competitions. The last time the Eagles managed that feat was in 2022/23, under Roger Schmidt, in the season they won the national title.

Marco Silva did, however, have an excellent opportunity to break that barrier. After the surprising 2-1 defeat to St. Gallen in Switzerland, Benfica responded emphatically at the Estádio da Luz, thrashing the Swiss side 5-0.

Next came Hearts, who also failed to resist at the Cathedral, leaving Lisbon with a heavy 6-1 defeat. With such a comfortable advantage, the expectation was to seal qualification in Scotland with another win, but the inefficiency of the team in red ultimately prevented that objective.

Between Roger Schmidt and Marco Silva, Bruno Lage and José Mourinho also took charge of Benfica, but neither of them managed to lead the team beyond two consecutive wins in European competitions, between the Champions League and the Europa League.

They will now have another opportunity to start a positive run in Europe. To do so, they will have to overcome Aarhus, the Danish side that reached the play-off after being eliminated in the Champions League qualifiers.

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