Benfica Don’t Want to Pull a Magellan

By: Greg | April 12th, 2007

While Portuguese explorer Ferdinand Magellan is widely recognized as the first to circumnavigate the Earth, it was his crew who, in fact, completed the voyage in Magellan’s name. Magellan only managed to make it through the Atlantic ocean, down through the appropriately named Strait of Magellan, across the Pacific and to the Philippines where he met his demise, some 16 months before one (out of three) of his ships managed to complete the voyage and return. This little history lesson having been digested, the Portuguese side Benfica now look to survive the proverbial Philippines and continue the trip home to UEFA Cup glory.

They’re lucky to be on home soil for the second leg of this tie, even down 3-2 on aggregate, they hold the all important two away goals. They’re unlucky to be dealing with knocks to defensive cog Luisão, Portuguese international midfielder Petit whose Michael Essien-esque willingness to do the dirty work may be missed in the softened midfield, and Fabrizio Miccoli who came on for Derlei in the first tie and proved an immediate spark plug in getting Benfica two late goals. Petit and Miccoli are question marks while Luisão is definitively out.

On the other side of the fence, Espanyol will be without Captain and first leg scorer Raúl Tamudo and will probably be replaced by Walter Pandiani who also scored in the first leg. Other speculation leads to Ernesto Valverde settling for a lone striker and crowding the midfield. Playing cautiously and/or for the tie very rarely results in positive outcomes. Let’s hope for the sake of a more open game he decides to go with a 4-4-2 configuration, as opposed to creating a traffic jam in the midfield in an attempt to smother open play from the likes of Simao Sabrosa.

I’m seeing this tie ending up 2-1, with a hopefully packed and rocking Luz and a whole three days of rest to inspire the Energizer bunnies of Portuguese football. Look for Simao to figure and if Miccoli is healthy, hopefully he’ll earn the start here and work the ball forward with Simao to produce some magic.