Benfica - Braga: blow leaves Eagles further from Champions League | OneFootball

Another slip-up at the Estádio da Luz. On the night of this Monday, May 11, Benfica's professional football team could do no better than a 2-2 draw at home to Braga and moved further away from securing a place in the Champions League. Rafa Silva and Vangelis Pavlidis scored for the Eagles. Check out the story of the match.

Trubin, Dedic, António Silva, Tomás Araújo, Samuel Dahl, Aursnes, Leandro Barreiro, Prestianni, Andreas Schjelderup, Rafa Silva and Ivanovic were the players who made up Benfica's starting eleven. During the match, José Mourinho also brought on Vangelis Pavlidis and Dodi Lukebakio.

Playing at home, in the Estádio da Luz's farewell match to the 2025/26 season, the team in red started at full throttle and found the net in the opening minutes, but VAR would rule it out for a 4-centimetre offside (4'). Around the quarter-hour mark, Schjelderup came very close, but Leonardo Lelo denied the goal on the line. In stoppage time, the Eagles also appealed for a penalty, but João Pinheiro waved play on.

In the second half, the red-and-white side finally broke the deadlock, with Rafa Silva opening the scoring to make it 1-0 (46'). However, the lead did not last long, as the visitors from Minho equalised through Pau Victor (48'). In the final half-hour of the match, Pavlidis restored the Eagles' lead, but the goal was eventually disallowed by João Pinheiro. In the final 10 minutes, more protests from Benfica over a penalty that was not given.

In the closing minutes, António Silva headed goalwards and came very close to making it 2-1, but squandered the chance (84'). If you do not score, you concede, and that is what happened when Gorby made it 2-1 for Braga (88'). In stoppage time, Pavlidis equalised from the penalty spot (90+2'). With this result, Benfica drop to third place on 77 points, overtaken by Sporting, who thrashed Rio Ave.

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