Benfica 2 Liverpool 1: Telegraph Match Report

Read a full match report of the Europa League tie between Benfica and Liverpool at Estadio da Luz on Thursday April 1, 2010.


By Rory Smith in Lisbon

Published: 8:00AM BST 02 Apr 2010

Benfica 2 Liverpool 1: match report

Off in Lisbon: Ryan Babel of Liverpool is shown a red card and sent off by referee Jonas Eriksson Photo: GETTY IMAGES



As Vitoria, Benfica‘s eagle mascot, completed her traditional fly past and the smoke from the firecrackers and the flares drifted down the steeped stands of Estadio da Luz, a huge banner was unfurled. “Benfica: what else?” it read. 90 minutes later, Rafael Benitez and Liverpool knew the answer. On an evening of heightened emotion and the highest drama, there was everything else.



Liverpool enjoyed the start they would have prayed for, seizing the lead and the precious booty of an away goal inside 10 minutes, and then endured a controversial sending-off, two hotly-contested penalties and the nerve-shredding anxiety of watching wave after wave of Benfica attack crash down on their ragged backline. The prestige may not be the same, but the Europa League lacks nothing in theatre.

This was one of those nights when Liverpool needed all of the continental nous, all of the resilience, that Benitez drilled into his side as they stormed Camp Nou, San Siro and all of those other great temples of European football in the days when they sat among the game’s elite.

That they are no longer there, though, should not detract from the pride they should take that they returned to Merseyside last night nursing merely a sense of injustice, rather than a despair at the disappearance of their one last chance of silverware from this most disappointing of seasons.

Forget the notion that this was only the Europa League. Estadio da Luz is a Champions League arena, its deafening roar a Champions League atmosphere.

Benfica, proud owners of Europe’s most prolific attack, stand 11 points clear in the Portuguese league. They are a Champions League team, and few will relish facing Jorge Jesus’s side in the competition next season.

Particularly, of course, in the circumstances Liverpool found themselves forced to confront after Ryan Babel was dismissed by referee Jonas Eriksson after 29 minutes.

By that stage, Daniel Agger had already put the visitors ahead, his backheeled conversion of the outstanding Steven Gerrard’s ingenious low free kick leaving Julio Cesar and his defence flatfooted, and Benfica, responding with an immediate barrage of chances - Oscar Cardozo missed three clear-cut opportunities, Angel Di Maria menaced and tormented - had illustrated their refusal to wallow in self-pity.

But Liverpool’s hopes of adding this broiling, teeming cauldron to their list of conquests evaporated as Babel - to a chorus of disgraceful monkey noises from a handful among the 62,649 crowd - trudged from the field, condemned by his own foolishness and Eriksson’s haphazard officiating.

Luisao, the towering, brutal central defender who spent much of his evening engaged in the game’s darker arts in an attempt to quell Fernando Torres, clattered into the Spanish international with an old-fashioned reducer by the half-way line. Babel, needlessly, indulged in an argument with the Brazilian, raising his hand to his opponent’s face. Eriksson, with a flourish, produced a red card.

“I was surprised,” said Benitez after the game. “It was difficult to understand, but impossible to change. But it is normal that you do not like decisions against your team.”

The Liverpool manager was to have plenty of opportunity to reflect on his displeasure.

Almost immediately after Babel’s dismissal, for which the Dutchman apologised after the game, Eriksson ruled out a Torres strike, ostensibly for the most marginal of offsides against Dirk Kuyt, adding bafflement to the fury, consternation and exhilaration the rest of the game provided.

Worse was to come as Liverpool’s defiant resistance finally broke on the hour. Cardozo, guilty of a quite criminal miss from a Di Maria corner immediately after the break, won a soft free kick on the edge of the box, much to Agger’s chagrin. His fierce shot shuddered against Reina’s right-hand post.

As Emiliano Insua and Aimar tussled for the rebound, Eriksson blew his whistle, amid the din, and pointed to the spot. Emphatically, Cardozo converted the penalty. The flags were raised, the firecrackers exploded, the flares sparked into life. The red brigades swarmed forward.

Liverpool creaked and cracked. Torres might have won the game, against the run of play, exchanging passes with the industrious Dirk Kuyt and sprinting clean through, but the Spanish international, exhausted, dragged wide.

Cardozo, again, punished his profligacy. Eriksson again pointed to the spot, after taking advice from his additional assistant referee, when Di Maria’s cross seemed to strike a sliding Jamie Carragher on the arm and the Paraguayan, a man who appears little more than a towering bludgeon, delicately stroked home a soft, chipped finish.

Where there is Anfield, there is hope. So febrile was the atmosphere here that, as injury time approached, Benfica were forced to warn their jubilant fans they were one firecracker away from abandonment.

Benitez would never encourage such props, of course, but he would dearly like to see Liverpool’s fans follow the example set by the Portuguese.

“This game was an example of what the fans can do when they are pushing,” he said.

“We need to show everyone that Anfield is different.”