When Benfica went the entire season unbeaten but finished second | OneFootball

Should Benfica avoid defeat on Saturday night at Estoril, it will be the second time the Eagles have achieved a bitter-sweet feat. Only once before has a football team in Portugal finished the league undefeated and yet failed to claim the title. Precisely Benfica.

It happened in 1977/78 in what was a turning point in the history of the Portuguese league. On the one hand, FC Porto claimed their first title in nineteen years. Few imagined at the time, but it was a launchpad for domination by the northerners over the following decades.

On the other hand, Benfica remained a formidable force and managed to finish the campaign undefeated, and yet it wasn’t enough to claim what would have then been a club record fourth title in a row.

The Eagles would have to wait until 2017 to equal Sporting’s Tetra, but they weren’t the only football club to suffer the pain of finishing runners-up despite going all year undefeated in European football. In 1951, Spartak Sofia became the first side in any European league to finish the campaign undefeated and not be crowned champions. The Bulgarian side drew eight times and ended up a point behind CSKA Sofia, who had lost a single match all season. A similar fate happened to Benfica twenty-five years later.

At the start of the 1977/78 campaign, John Mortimore’s men were clearly considered as strong favourites to win the league. The last time they had not finished top of the table was in the 1973/74 campaign, lost to Sporting. Since then, even with Eusébio now gone, the Eagles remained the undisputed big dogs of Portuguese football. It was a side evolving from the dominating machine of the 1960s but still harnessing the club’s core identity to the bone. Youth academy graduates and local players, particularly from the famous South Bank towns, made up the bulk of the team in an all-Portuguese side, as foreigners would only be allowed to play for Benfica in the following decade.

had at his disposal Portugal’s greatest goalkeeper, Manuel Bento, and a defensive quartet that included Minervino Pietra, Eurico Gomes, António Bastos Lopes and the star signing of the summer, the returning club captain Humberto Coelho, who had enjoyed a brief spell at Paris Saint-Germain. The long-serving midfielder Toni was also back from his Las Vegas experience, and was joined in midfield by the likes of Shéu Han, José Luis and the teenage wing genius Fernando Chalana. Nené, Celso and the maverick Vitor Baptista were the main striking threats of a side that no longer had Artur Jorge, Manuel Jordão or Eusébio but was still a formidable attacking force.

Benfica aim for four in a row

Few imagined there would be a big threat in their quest for a record fourth consecutive title, something that only Sporting had managed to do once before in the Cinco Violinos golden age. It was the biggest goal of the season, alongside a return to the heights of European football. Benfica were the best team in Europe in the 1960s, reaching the European Cup final 5 times and lifting the trophy twice, but their glorious past was still proving a weight on their shoulders as they struggled to return to former glories in the following decade.

From the start it appeared that Mortimore’s and Benfica’s main domestic rivals would by Sporting. José Maria Pedroto’s Boavista had put up a strong fight for the league trophy in recent campaigns, but the manager had now moved to Porto, who had been underwhelming for a decade, and few expected Pedroto to have an immediate impact despite great results both at Boavista and Vitória FC.

The Lisbon derby kicked off the campaign, and a draw, with two early goals from Chalana and Franguito, set the tone for the season. Three consecutive wins followed – against Belenenses, Vitória SC and Varzim – and then a second draw, away at Boavista, which allowed FC Porto to climb into first place after an impressive start of the season. Benfica then reeled off four consecutive wins versus Sporting Espinho, Portimonense, Marítimo and Sporting Covilhã, which aided by Porto’s only defeat of the season, away at Estoril, allowed the Eagles to climb back to top spot by late November.

The full Benfica 1977/78 squad. Invincible but not the champions

A surprise draw with Braga followed by wins against Setúbal and Estoril set up what already looked like a key contest in the title run, as Benfica hosted FC Porto in a packed Estádio da Luz stadium on a cold January afternoon. A goalless draw left everything as it was, but when Benfica slipped up at Restelo, Porto finally took a lead at the top of the standings, never to let go of it.

It became a marathon run right until the end of the season, with both sides dropping points almost at the same time, but never a single defeat that would allow the league standings to take a turn. Benfica were held by Varzim, Portimonense and Braga, in what was already a surprising eight draws in total, a number perhaps a consequence of a lack of a poacher who could take advantage of their offensive quality.

Porto held firm during that run, also benefiting from the fact that Benfica had invested so much effort in the European Cup, where they beat Torpedo Moscow and Boldklubben 1903 before falling at the hands of the holders Liverpool, and a Portuguese Cup run, where they were eventually beaten by Sporting in the last eight. Come May though, and Benfica would still be unbeaten in the league, although they were not in top spot. The sides were still separated by a single point when the Eagles visited Porto in what became one of the most iconic football matches of the decade.

Crunch match and yet another draw for Benfica

An unfortunate own goal by Carlos Simões gave Benfica the early lead they were praying for. In the second half, despite Porto’s best efforts, it was Humberto Coelho who could have netted a second visitors, goalkeeper João Fonseca making a fantastic save to keep the game alive for the hosts. Porto threw everything at António Fidalgo’s goal, who replaced the injured Bento, and Ademir managed to grab an equaliser, netting on the rebound after a free-kick had been repelled, with only seven minutes to play. That was how it finished. The 1-1 draw made it nine times Benfica had shared the points with their opponents in the season.

With two games to go and a one-point advantage in the standings, it seemed it was Porto’s title to lose. They drew in the following match, though, with the ghost of past blunders creeping in, setting up a title decider on the last day of the campaign. June 11th saw the northern side beat Sporting Braga at home while Benfica travelled to the Braga district to play Riopele, hoping for a miracle they never got, despite scoring four goals to complete a memorable campaign.

Full results of Benfica’s undefeated 1978/78 season (Image: www.zerozero.pt)

Powder-puff attack proves costly

Benfica’s nine draws were two more than Porto. While Pedroto’s men had one defeat to their name, Benfica had none. Yet, they both finished the season equal on points with the Dragons, the northerns winning the league because they had a better goal difference. Porto had scored 81 goals and conceded 21 while Benfica had just let in 11 goals against but were uncapable of scoring more than 56, a worst offensive return than third-placed Sporting, who finished nine points behind in the league table. The absence of Eusébio or one of the killer strikers they had enjoyed over the past seasons meant the historic Tetra eluded them once again. It was the fifth time Benfica had won three league titles in a row, only to miss a fourth by the narrowest of margins.

Continental examples of undefeated non-champions

Funnily enough, a season later, in Italy, Perugia suffered a similar fate, as they fought against AC Milan for the Scudetto. The side led by the great Paolo Rossi went 30 matches undefeated in Serie A but conceded a staggering 19 draws to finish three points adrift of the Rossoneri, who had lost three times but still managed to win the league. Less than a decade later, in Turkey, Galatasaray also missed out on the league title because of a worse goal difference than Besiktas, despite failing to lose a single match, while their rivals had two defeats to their name. Sixteen draws did it for the Istanbul-based juggernaut.

Of the three, Benfica had the better season and arguably the better side, but suffered the same fate. The Lisbon giants would have to wait for 1981 to celebrate the league title again, after Porto claimed back-to-back trophies, and Sporting came on top in the 1979/80 season.

Invincible Portuguese teams: four instances, three champions

Only on three other occasions has a Portuguese side finished the season undefeated, but each time, unsurprisingly, they were crowned league champions. FC Porto under André Villas-Boas did it in 2011, and two years later so did Vitor Pereira’s Dragons. Benfica had been the first team to do it, in 1972/73, clinching the trophy eighteen points clear from Belenenses after winning 28 and drawing two of their 30 games.

Few people recognise the greatness of that Benfica side of 1977/78. At the time it became only the second team to finish the league undefeated. Not only did it prove that Benfica could still be a dominant force in the land, but the campaign also signalled there was a new rival to reckon with. For the following decade, Porto and Benfica traded titles, before the Blue and Whites began a winning streak that would edge them ever closer to the total number the championship triumphs held by their Lisbon rivals.