It was a dream night for Portuguese-Luxembourgish player Leandro Barreino. The midfielder was a starter and scored one hat-trick in Benfica’s 4-0 victory at Estádio da Luz, against Famalicão, in the opening game of the 18th round of the Portuguese championship, on Friday.
The Luxembourger scored the first goals for the Reds, in the 11th, 36th and 67th minutes, assisted once by Pavlidis and twice by Schjelderup, and the Turkish Orkun Kökçü closed the score, in the 81st, after a backheel from Aktürkoglu.
Leandro Barreiro is the man of the moment at Benfica. It had been 25 years since a central midfielder had signed a hat-trick by the red ones. According to the newspaper Record, you have to go back to 2000 to find an old acquaintance, Maniche, who scored three goals in the robust 6-2 victory against Farense.
Benfica provisionally equaled Sporting at the top of the I Liga. Bruno Lage’s ‘eleven’, which was coming off two defeats in the competition, is second, with the same 41 points as Sporting and one more than FC Porto, who have one game less, while Famalicão are in eight matches without winning in the League and is ninth, with 20.
Last week, Leandro Barreiro won his first trophy for Benfica when he won the League Cup, in the final with Sporting, 7-6 in a penalty shoot-out, after 1-1 at the end of regulation time. Leandro Barreiro entered the match in the 73rd minute to replace Aursnes and took the sixth penalty that helped the Reds win.
-The midfielder transferred to the ‘Eagles’ in July 2024, for five seasons, being the first Luxembourger to join the club. He started his career at FC Erpeldange and then spent time at Mainz, in Germany.
On his CV, the Portuguese-Luxembourger has, so far, 56 caps for the Luxembourg national team.
In the last five years, he has also faced the ‘quinas’ on six occasions, always as a starter for the ‘Red Lions’, in qualifying games for Euro2020, World Cup2022 and Euro2024.
Leandro Barreiro was also elected Sportsman of the Year 2023 in Luxembourg.
