Benfica v Napoli, Getty Images December 11, 2025, 00:08

Benfica Lisbon are trying to force their way into the main round of the UEFA Champions League, but have squandered too many chances to score valuable points during their four-game losing streak, so any attempt by the Eagles to salvage their position looks more like a gamble. However, they still remain in the game, and reigning Italian champions Napoli were well aware of this during their visit to Da Luz.

However, at the same time, Antonio Conte decided that he can play with fate in very risky games, and put in the starting lineup exactly the same list of football players who won a difficult victory over Turin Juventus in the championship last weekend (2:1). Add to this a few days of recovery between matches and the need to fly to Portugal, and we get a stale “Partenopeia”, while Jose Mourinho after the derby against Sporting (1:1) still experienced a certain rotation.

And what a striking difference between the teams was noticeable on the football field throughout the confrontation! It got to the point that the guests looked confused against the background of the opponents’ pressing from the opening minutes and in the end just started to bring moments to their own goal. But Benfica needed at least three direct invitations to open the account. In his thirtieth year, Aursnes decided not to hit the target in principle, so Rios had to take advantage of an unsuccessful header from McTominay in the direction of his own goal, after a pass from the left wing in the 20th minute.

After that, the “eagles” decided to withdraw to their own half, as if expecting some kind of response from their opponents. And she wasn’t there. That’s all there is to it. Meanwhile, the Benfica players in the attack continued the festival of principled extravagance, and if with such football the first half ended somewhere with the score 3:0 in favor of Mourinho’s team, no one would have paid attention to it. This advantage of one team over another was so noticeable.

The home team managed to make up for the loss at the beginning of the second half, when Rios found Barreira at the near post with a cross from the right wing of the free kick on the counterattack, and he sent the ball with his heel into the far corner past the hands of the massive Vani Milinkovich-Savic. And it doesn’t matter that Conte came out with ideas after the break to rebuild his team to play with two central defenders – still nothing worked or worked after these changes.

Napoli eventually moved the ball into the opponent’s half and were on the attack for a long time after the second missed. But Trubin was properly disturbed about two times, and Anatoliy handled the balls calmly, so it was another “dry” match for him in the Champions League. Georgy Sudakov, meanwhile, was remembered for losing episodes in defense to his former teammate Neres, and also built several cool attacks of the team in the first half, but, as we have already noted, at that time the “eagles” liked to beat bad guys.

In the next round, Lisbon’s Benfica will visit Turin’s Juventus, while Italy’s Napoli will travel to Denmark’s Copenhagen.