Benfica 1 - 0 Copenhagen 1st Half
By: Greg | August 29th, 2007Benfica must have eaten a salad of four-leaf clovers and be wearing horseshoes instead of football boots, because Copenhagen had about seven completely legitimate scoring chances. This is not an exaggeration, they literally could justifiably be up 7-1 at this point. They have wasted so many chances from as close as six yards out that I didn’t think one could try and miss this many times and actually succeed.
The game has been a great deal of fun and rather wide open. The second half should be even more of this as Copenhagen will need to tally twice to match Benfica on aggregate add more time to their Champions League adventure for 07/08. I expect Benfica to tighten up in the middle and (hopefully) especially the back. I’m not sure what Copenhagen boss Ståle Solbakken can possibly do to tweak his attack for the second half. I mean, if I were to put a team on the pitch that provided no less than seven back-of-the-net bound shots which were turned away by everything but a walrus invading the pitch, I’d say that my chances in the second half would be pretty decent.
Benfica can not be happy with the away goal and 3-1 aggregate lead given their porous back line in the first half. While open play always makes for a more exciting contest, Benfica’s brand of open play is producing sloppy back coverage and only one or two opportunities to capitalize on the attack. They should probably try to smother Copenhagen rather than play open with them. While the first half scoreline is in Benfica’s favor, in the second half probability has to favor the team that creates more chances. Thus far that team has been Copenhagen by a long shot. I’ll be back after the second half with the result and some quick thoughts. I need to save the BIG analysis just in case tomorrow’s news yields a bunch of poo cushions.
Category: Benfica
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Not even when Benfica lost 7-0 in Vigo vs. Celta 8 or 9 years ago we played so bad like in the first half. Indeed, the result could be just that at half time: 7-0. But the 2nd half was way better, and Benfica players showed great “teamship”. Props to Di Maria (who was still playing with a nagging injury), Petit (10-out-of-10 game) and Miguel Vitor. Nuno Assis should really look forward to a new carrer.
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