Steamroller! Benfica thrash Hearts, almost in Europa play-off (6-1) | OneFootball

Benfica thrashed Hearts 6-1 this Thursday in the first leg of the Europa League third qualifying round, securing a very comfortable advantage for the decisive match in Edinburgh, scheduled for August 13.

Marco Silva’s side came out firing and scored their first goal just three minutes in. Rafa Silva met a cutback from Leandro Barreiro perfectly and opened the scoring at the Estádio da Luz.

Benfica continued to show great attacking power and doubled their lead in the 23rd minute. From a corner taken by Georgiy Sudakov, captain Tomás Araújo rose well and headed past Beau Reus. Hearts tried to respond, and Laurent Mendy hit the crossbar after a misjudged run off his line by Samuel Soares.

Before the end of the first half, the Eagles won a penalty after Gianluca Prestianni was brought down. In the 42nd minute, from the spot, Vangelis Pavlidis made no mistake and made it 3-0, scoring his fifth goal in two games, a result that stood at the end of the opening 45 minutes.

In the second half, the Glorioso adopted a more controlled tempo, but still kept their sights on the Jambos’ goal. In the 59th minute, Prestianni won the ball on the edge of the box and curled home to make it 4-0. With Richard Ríos, Andreas Schjelderup and Jhon Durán already on the pitch, the Scottish side pulled one back in the 71st minute. Tom Reanud, on the right side of the box, fired a low shot across goal to score a consolation goal for Hearts.

However, the scoring was not over. On a quick attacking transition, Jhon Durán scored on his Benfica debut to make it 5-1. Right at the end, Schjelderup made it 6-1 from the penalty spot. The second leg will be played next Thursday, August 13, at 7:45 pm, at Tynecastle Park. The winner of this tie will face the loser of the matchup between Denmark’s AGF Aarhus and Azerbaijan’s Sabah FK in the play-off.

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