Champions League playoff: Advantage Benfica after 1-0 win in Monaco

Benfica took a step towards the Champions League last 16 with an away victory in Monaco thanks to a superbly taken second-half goal from in-form Greek striker Vangelis Pavlidis.

Bruno Lage and his team will be pleased with the win but may feel they could have put the tie to bed after Monaco’s former Braga midfielder Al-Musrati was sent off early in the second half and Benfica missed chances to amplify their lead.

Nevertheless, the Eagles will be confident of finishing the job in Lisbon next week, especially considering Monaco will have three first-teamers suspended for the return leg. José Ricardo Leite reports. 

Di María on the bench

After a horrendous week in terms of injuries for Benfica, losing Manu and Bah to ACL tears, Benfica arrived to the Princedom of Monaco without two key players in the second half of the season and still unsure whether Ángel Di María could recover in time to make an appearance against the Ligue 1 outfit, the Argentine superstar travelling with squad but not making the starting lineup .

Monaco’s side debuted a well-known player for the Portuguese public: Al-Musrati, the former SC Braga midfielder. The coach left Ben Seghir and Minamino on the bench, two of the shining stars for the French side.

In the second minute, Monaco cried out for a penalty, but it was a ridiculous dive from Embolo. Needless to say that a player as physical as the Swiss striker has no business in diving like that.

Carreras goes close

Alvaro Carreras opened the hostilities when he recovered the ball and ran half of the pitch by himself with the ball under control. The play deserved a goal, but it went wide with just four minutes played.

Monaco answered with an amazing associative play, culminating with a brilliant strike from Akliouche. Trubin however saved a certain goal like a cat.

Less than 15 minutes were enough to make an analysis on what the game plan was for both teams. Benfica were playing for possession, which is not a good idea: Monaco thrive in these conditions. Monaco are reckless in protecting spaces between the lines and Benfica have players like Schjelderup, Arktutkoglu, Kokçu and maybe Di María to explore that space left by the French side.

On the other hand, Monaco were clearly exploiting the counter-attack. Maybe a little bit too much, they seemed too eager to play the ball up front.

Carreras risks early bath 

Until the 30 minutes the game kind of “died” until a reckless challenge from Carreras, who already had been admonished with a yellow card. Monaco’s side protested vigorously. It was reckless and could’ve been a second yellow to the Spanish.

Benfica fell away from their great start. They looked like a completely different team as they started committing some childish mistakes, losing the ball almost automatically with nonsense forward passes. Lage can’t be happy about the last 30 minutes of the first half from his team.

Monaco’s tactical adjustments effective

Monaco made some minor but crucial changes in positioning, prioritizing flooding the midfield to gain an advantage and letting their full-backs go up the pitch and offer some width. They were more dangerous, but were missing the shots on goal, which only happened again in the 43rd minute by the Russian Golovin.

And with a play that fell from the sky, Benfica were really close of opening the score with the usual suspect: Álvaro Carreras has been flying lately and almost scored the first for the Eagles after excellent approach play by Pavlidis (not the ones that won the SuperBowl).

The second half started magically for Benfica. Pavlidis scored another goal and with an amazing finish. 1-0 to Benfica and 8 goals in the last 6 matches for the “Greek Freak” (sorry Giannis).

Al-Musrati almost immediately received a second yellow card after he told the referee to give Carreras a second yellow. The Libyan midfielder was right again. However, he was not the captain and therefore requesting a card for an opponent is punished with a yellow card.

Card-happy referee

Carreras had survived picking up his second yellow card twice, so it was strange that the referee started giving yellows for everything that moved. Florentino was shown a yellow, which meant that he misses next week’s match in the Estádio da Luz. No Manu, no Florentino and no defensive midfielder, a key position in Lage’s system.

In the next minute, another reckless challenge made by the Benfica player. Florentino could have been sent off with a second yellow, the referee ignored the protests from the Monaco players and staff. They were justified with their protests, clearly Benfica benefited from the officiating in the match.

Playing against 10 men, Benfica were expected to create danger and they did. A lot of attacking flow, but it still looks off. It looks like the players are disconnected from each other. Benfica should’ve looked for more goals and solve the playoff right away.

Another challenge, another yellow for Monaco, the referee was feeling quite generous today!

Di María suffers injury relapse

Di María came onto the pitch during the second half, but… again he got injured. Another muscular problem and yet another problem for Bruno Lage. After a well-publicised spate of injuries for Lisbon rivals Sporting, Benfica are now experiencing the same problem.

In the 86th minute Benfica had a glaring chance to score the second goal with Amdouni crossing the ball that eventually fell on the right foot of Aursnes, but his shot got deflected by a Monegasque defender. 

 

Positives and negatives

- Al-Musrati: being sent off for protesting is probably the dumbest way to get sent off. He ruined his teams’ chances of winning a game in which they were superior at the time to the opposition.

+ Zakaria: untouchable and if it wasn’t for Pavlidis he would be the Man of the Match. Amazing performance, a complete midfielder with a perfect adaptation to French football.

- Florentino: a defensive midfielder who can’t defend is just a midfielder. And when that midfielder does not have passing ability, he is just minus one player for his team. A poor performance and he received a yellow that rules him out of the next match. He could have been sent off as well.

+ Pavlidis: finally, the best version of Pavlidis has arrived, just in time for the crucial part of the season. Eight goals in the last six matches and he is today’s Man of the Match.