Wasteful Benfica lose 1-0 to Bayer Leverkusen to crash to fourth successive Champions League defeat | OneFootball

Despite creating a hatful of clearcut chances, Benfica’s nightmare campaign in this season’s Champions League continued as a goal by Patrik Schick gave Bayer Leverkusen victory in Lisbon tonight.

The Eagles have zero points from four games and are only not bottom of the 36-team league because Ajax – curiously Benfica’s next opponents – have a worse goal difference than the Portuguese club. Two proud European clubs a long way from past glories.

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Former Benfica favourite Alex Grimaldo returned to the Estádio da Luz tonight. Here the Bayer Leverkusen left-back tussles for the ball with Richard Rios. (Photo by Carlos Rodrigues/Getty Images)

Benfica came into the match looking to relaunch their hopes in Europe this season, buoyed by a positive performance and 3-0 win versus Vitória in Guimarães on Saturday.

Festival of missed chances

And truth be told, the Eagles largely bossed the first hour of the match, doing everything apart the most important task in football – putting the ball in the net.

In the 11th minute Dodi Lukebakio was played in behind the German defence, the Belgian winger boring down on goal and dinking the ball over Mark Flekken, only to see it bounce off the top of the bar and out of play.

Richard Ríos, Leandro Barreiro and Lukebakio all tested Flekken as Benfica peppered the Bayer goal.

Bar rescues Bayer again

The chances kept coming for the hosts, with Barreiro heading narrowly wide before captain Nico Otamendi rose high to head goalwards from a corner, but Benfica were out of luck as the ball hit the bar once again.

The visitors had a golden chance of their own to grab the lead against the run of play when Maza slipped a ball through to Ernest Poku who was clean through on goal, but the young Dutch forward could not keep his composure and snatched at the chance, shanking the ball wide.

Back came Benfica with Sudakov playing a brilliant defence-splitting pass to set Lukebakio on his way again, the Belgian denied by Flekken. From the rebound Aursnes fed Pavlidis but Badé got back in the nick of time to deny the Greek striker a tap-in.

More missed chances

The half-time whistle went with Benfica fans wondering how their team had not scored, and upon the restart the opportunities kept coming.

A confusing passage of play after a corner resulted in the ball falling at the feet of Pavlidis just six yards from goal, the normally lethal Greek striker opting to try and round Flekken instead of shooting and the alert goalkeeper quickly ran out and thwarted him with his feet.

Pavlidis then swivelled and shot from the edge of the box but the ball drifted wide of the post.

In the 55th minute Benfica had a loud penalty shout ignored by the officials as former Vitória centre-back Tapsoba appeared to knock down Barreiro with a flailing arm in the box.

Schick stuns Benfica

Bayer coach Kasper Hjulmand was first to ring the changes, bringing on Patrik Schick and Malik Tillman shortly before the hour mark and he would be rewarded for his proactivity.

The returning Alex Grimaldo passed to Schick, whose shot was repelled by Trubin, but Samuel Dahl failed to deal with the loose ball, only succeeding in heading it towards Schick who in turn headed it into the net.

The goal knocked the stuffing out of Benfica and visibly lifted the Germans, who had themselves not won in the competition this season before tonight.

The chances dried up at both ends of the pitch in a stop-start final chunk of the match, with Bayer taking every opportunity to waste time, but even with six minutes of stoppage time awarded by the referee Benfica could not muster an equaliser.

“Happy with performance; frustrated with result” – Mourinho

“I’m frustrated with the result, but very happy with the team’s performance,” said Mourinho post-match. “The team played very well with and without the ball.”

“The key was in all the chances we created and didn’t take. The display was good and complete – the only thing missing were the goals. I said to the players that if we play like that but score the chances we missed, we’ll win nine out of ten games.”

Benfica: Anatoliy Trubin, Nicolás Otamendi, Tomás Araújo, Samuel Dahl (Amar Dedic, 69’), Enzo Barrenechea, Georgiy Sudakov (Gianluca Prestianni, 69’), Leandro Barreiro (Andreas Schjelderup, 69’), Fredrik Aursnes, Richard Ríos, Dodi Lukebakio, Vangelis Pavlidis