Mourinho’s Benfica click in impressive style to blow away Vitória 3-0 in Guimarães | OneFootball

It’s taken a while, and a tough schedule upon his arrival did not help, but José Mourinho’s Benfica put in the arguably their best performance, and certainly their best 45 minutes, since the Special One’s return to the Portuguese capital tonight.

The away fixture at Vitória is one of the most difficult fixtures outside the Big Three for any team in Portugal, as exemplified in a hard-fought first half without chances of note at either end of the pitch.

Samuel Dahl celebrates scoring his first goal for Benfica in Guimarães tonight

Mourinho took off Georgiy Sudakov and Gianluca Prestianni at the break, replaced by Leandro Barreiro and Andreas Schjelderup and the Eagles came out a transformed team.

Lukebakio on fire

The irrepressible Dodi Lukebakio was proving a thorn in Vitória’s side, the Belgian swinging over two delicious crosses in quick succession. The first was headed towards goal by Barreiro, drawing a superb reaction save out of Juan Castillo with Pavlidis shooting wide from the rebound. Moments later another laser-guided cross by Lukebakio was headed marginally wide by Richard Ríos.

Lukebakio brought another sharp save out of Castillo from a direct free-kick, and from the resulting corner Benfica took the lead.

The Belgian winger produced another perfect delivery, and centre-back Tomás Araújo rose high to head in from close range with Vitória’s marking non-existent.

Blanco sees red

Things went from bad to worse for the hosts in the 56th minute when Fábio Blanco was shown a straight red card for an over-zealous challenge on Barreiro.

Vitória’s best player, Samu Silva, tried to shake his team into action, shooting powerfully over the bar from long distance, but Benfica were in no mood to relinquish their grip on the match.

Another slick move cut through the home team’s defence, the ball arriving at the feet of Samuel Dahl who fired an unstoppable angled shot into the net off the underside of the bar. It was the Swede’s first goal for the club.

Benfica’s attacking momentum was too much for Vitória to handle, Castillo again saving well from Barreiro and the excellent Enzo Barrenechea then forcing the overworked goalkeeper into another stop.

Rego scores

The icing was put on the cake in the 87th minute when 20-year-old academy product João Rego also scored his first goal for the club, following up on a Barrenechea shot that Castillo had parried.

“Some may say the result was helped by us playing against ten men, but no, when it was eleven against eleven we completely bossed the game in the first 15 minutes of the second half,” said a delighted Mourinho in the flash interview post-match. “We could have scored two, three, or four goals before we scored our first”

Having won their last three game by a combined score of 11-0, Benfica will look to make it four in the row against Bayer Leverkusen on Wednesday night at the Estádio da Luz to keep their Champions League hopes alive.