After beating Midtjylland and Dynamo Kyiv in qualifying, Benfica were placed in Group H of the Champions League. And it cannot be said that the Eagles were lucky, because they fell out along with the multimillionaires Paris Saint-Germain, Juventus and Maccabi Haifa.
One of Benfica’s strongest teams emerged from Pot 1: long-running to win the competition, Paris Saint-Germain seem to have cheered up this season and came out on top with a 4-0 thrashing of Nantes in the Super Cup and overtaking the jumper over Lille (7-1) in the last round of Ligue 1. After much criticism of Mauricio Pochettino’s style of play, Christophe Galtier arrived on the PSG bench and appeared to have injected an injection of team attacking football.
The brightest stars are, of course, the intimidating Messi, Neymar and Mbappe in a team that now has four Portuguese players. Nuno Mendes, Vitinha and Danilo will return to Portugal, and for Renato Sanches, the return to Luz will certainly be special. Pablo Sarabia, Sporting’s star last season, will also return to Lisbon. In the 2013/2014 season, Benfica and PSG also met in the Champions League group: a 3-0 victory for the French in Paris and a 2-1 victory for the Reds at home.
In Pot 2, Juventus edged out Benfica to allow one more return to the Estadio da Luz, in this case Angel Di Maria of Argentina, who played for the Eagles from 2007 to 2010. are closed, as is Paul Pogba, but the French midfielder is injured and it is not known when he will return to the field.
Massimo Allegri’s team started Serie A with a 3-0 victory over Sassuolo, but in the last goalless match at home with Sampdoria, they drew. Benfica’s last duel with the Italians had great memories, with an epic passage to the 2013/2014 Europa League semi-finals (2-1 in Luz, 0-0 in Turin).
Finally, defending champions of Israel Maccabi Haifa came out of the last pot, having reached this stage after they eliminated Olympiacos (4-0 loss to the Greeks in Athens, in the game in which Pedro Martins left Olympiacos), Apollo Limassol. and Estrela Vermelha in qualifying.
