WEBDESK: Raphinha was once again Barcelona’s hero as they claimed a narrow victory over Benfica in the first leg of their UEFA Champions League tie, despite being down to 10-men.
Barcelona’s teenage defender Pau Cubarsi was given a straight red-card in the Benfica vs Barcelona game for a last-man foul on Vangelis Pavlidis in the 22nd minute, but the team refused to give up with the goalkeeper Wojciech Szczesny putting in one of his best performances this season.
The Polish goalkeeper pulled off a couple of brilliant saves to keep Barcelona in the game. His effort was rewarded when Raphinha capitalised on a poor defensive pass to score his goal in the 61st minute of the game. The goal was his 25th of the season and 9th in the Champions League campaign.
Raphinha also came to the rescue for five-time winners Barca in January when the two sides met in the league group phase, scoring a 96th-minute winner in a nine-goal thriller.
The star of the show for the Benfica vs Barcelona game, however, was Szczesny, who came out of retirement to play for Barça after the Germany international Marc-André ter Stegen sustained a torn knee ligament in September.
“Szczesny saved us many times today, he is outstanding,” said Barcelona midfielder Pedri.
“You have to give a lot of credit for the team’s effort after going a man down so early in the game. On other days it was harder for us but today we hung on and defended really well.”
The polish goal keeper ended up making eight saves in the Benfica vs Barcelona game with five of those saves being made in the second half. Barcelona only had a couple of chances with Raphinha scoring from their only shot on target in the second half.
The Portuguese hosts thought they had a penalty in the 82nd minute in the Benfica vs Barcelona game after the otherwise faultless Wojciech Szczesny brought down Andrea Belotti, but the spot-kick was overturned for offside in the build-up.
“It’s a bad result, we had good chances today, especially when they got the red card … It’s a very disappointing result,” said Benfica player Aursnes.
“We created a lot of chances, but unfortunately we didn’t manage to score and paid a heavy price for that.”
Overall in the Benfica vs Barcelona game, Benfica averaged 53 per cent possession of the ball and had 18 shots in total compared to Barcelona’s 47 per cent possession and just 5 shots.
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