NOS Football•yesterday, 10:56 PM
After the away win over Girona, Feyenoord has achieved another great victory on foreign soil in the Champions League. The Rotterdam team, who delivered a particularly strong first half, won 3-1 at Benfica, the team of former Feyenoord players Orkun Kökcü and Fredrik Aursnes.
The goals in Lisbon for Feyenoord, which started the prestigious club tournament with a 4-0 home defeat against Bayer Leverkusen, came from Ayase Uedo and Antoni Milambo, who scored twice. Two goals were also disallowed.
After three matches, Feyenoord occupies sixteenth place in the Champions League standings. The first 24 ultimately qualify for the next round. Feyenoord still awaits group matches against Red Bull Salzburg, Manchester City, Sparta Prague, Bayern Munich and Lille OSC.
Feyenoord hoped to maintain the flow of the past period, with victories over Girona (2-3), FC Twente (2-1) and Go Ahead Eagles (1-5), but also knew that Benfica under new coach Bruna Lage , who succeeded Roger Schmidt, who was dismissed at the end of August, had a nice series of victories.
Ear washing
Moreover, the Rotterdam team had not forgotten the 5-0 defeat at the end of July in preparation for the new season. After twenty minutes, Justin Bijlow had already had to fish four times. Coach Brian Priske’s brigade was very concerned about erasing that stain.
The first step towards this came after twelve minutes, when Igor Paixão was sent into the box by Quinten Timber and put the ball perfectly back to Ayase Ueda. The Japanese, who missed a penalty against Girona, remained cool: 0-1.
Benfica, which had shown very little, almost came back on level terms shortly afterwards, but Alexander Bah saw his header bounce hard into the field via the inside of the post after a corner kick.
Feyenoord did not appear to be upset and even thought they had made it 0-2 halfway through the first half through Ueda, who had tapped in the ball after good perseverance from Dávid Hancko. However, during the corner kick that preceded it, Jordan Lotomba had attacked Nicolás Otamendi and so the goal was disallowed.
Through the legs
The 0-2 still came. Timber found Antoni Milambo, who gated Otamendi and then beat the Ukrainian goalkeeper Anatoliy Trubin – again through the legs – with a hard shot. Moments later, Ibrahim Osman tried in vain for his own success, where passing on Ueda seemed a better option. No third goal for Feyenoord.
Anyway, Feyenoord did well. It kept Benfica far from their own sixteen meters and regularly sent the Portuguese team from pillar to post when in possession of the ball.
In the center back, Gernot Trauner and Hancko had no child with Vangelis Pavlidis. The Greek, who scored 29 goals last season for AZ and became the top scorer in the Premier League together with PSV player Luuk de Jong, still scored, but illegally. Moments earlier, Kerem Aktürkoglu had received the ball in an offside position.
Fraction offside
And so, after an excellent first act, Feyenoord went into halftime with a wonderful lead. After the break, little changed initially in the game image. Feyenoord remained upright without any problems and repeatedly came out dangerous.
Milambo failed to play to Osman, who had rushed along, but after just under an hour the ball was back in the Benfica goal. Hancko tapped Paixão’s free kick against the post, after which Trauner had no trouble with the tap-in. However, the Austrian had been slightly offside at the time of Hancko’s effort.
Benfica probably took courage from that windfall and went back to looking for the tying goal. That came in the 66th minute when Feyenoord goalkeeper Timon Wellenreuther blocked a shot from Jan-Niklas Beste. into Kerem Aktürkoglu’s feet. The Turk, who had also scored in the victories over Red Star (2-1) and Atlético Madrid (4-0), used the rebound.
Gums
From that moment on, Feyenoord came under pressure. Wellenreuther kept the Rotterdam team going with a header from Zeki Amdouni and a shot from close range from Aktürkoglu. Timber and the once again strong playing Hwang In-beom tried in vain with long shots on the other side of the field.
The match degenerated into a battle of attrition, with several casualties, especially on the Feyenoord side, and players having to be replaced prematurely. The final whistle was almost reached, but not before Milambo had scored the 1-3 on the scoreboard in extra time.
