It looked a mismatch on paper and so it proved. Sporting scored four goals, hit the woodwork twice and missed a penalty as they brushed aside Champions League debutants Kairat Almaty 4-1 in Lisbon this evening. Tom Kundert reports from the José Alvalade stadium.
Rui Borges rings the changes
Sporting made three changes to the starting XI in relation to the weekend victory at Famalicão, with full-backs Fresneda and Maxi Araúja returning to the lineup and Eduardo Quaresma given his first start of the season.
The hosts had a golden chance to take an early lead as Luis Suárez slipped in Pedro Gonçalves, the forward beating his marker but thwarted by 18-year-old goalkeeper Sherkhan Kalmurza.
Teenage goalkeeper shines
The Portuguese champions continued to boss the game, Inácio heading over, and midway through the first half Suárez won a penalty.
Teenager Kalmurza – playing only his second game for the Kazaks – was having a night to remember though, and saved Morten Hjulmand’s spot kick with his outstretched leg.
Quenda was next to be denied by the goalkeeper, who dived to his right to make a flying save. The team from Kazakhstan had been inoffensive until that point but on a rare breakaway a rocket of a shot by Dastan Satpaev forced a sharp save out of João Virgínia.
Sporting were soon back on the attack, Suárez rifling an effort towards goal from outside the box and unlucky to see the ball bounce off the post.
Trincão makes the breakthrough
Just when it seemed the visitors would survive until the break, a fizzing 25-yard shot by Francisco Trincão nestled into the corner of the net. Half-time and Sporting 1-0 to the good.
Suárez was left ruing his luck at the start of the second half as he hit the woodwork again, his header crashing back into play off the crossbar.
Kairat were beginning to feel they might yet take something from their long-distance trip as the home supporters began to voice their frustration. A bad mistake by the out-of-sorts Kochorashvili enabled Jorginho to burst clean through on goal, but Virginia saved his teammate’s blushes with an excellent stop.
Three-goal burst
What had been a largely frustrating night up until then for the Green & Whites completely changed complexion in a devastating spell of three goals in three minutes.
Trincão guided a finish into the top corner after being well set up by Iván Fresneda, and substitute Alisson then found the net with a firm short from the the top of the box after receiving a pass from Quenda.
Quenda himself then helped himself to a piece of the action, the young winger dancing his way through the Kazak defence and finishing with aplomb to make it 4-0 with over 20 minutes yet to play. Suprisingly it was Quenda’s first goal at Alvalade and the 18-year-old star celebrated wildly, taking off his shirt and receiving a yellow card for his troubles.
Sporting slowed down however, with a series of substitutions also disrupting the rhythm of the game, although Trincão will be disappointed he did not complete his hat-trick when he rounded the goalkeeper but was crowded out as he was about to shoot.
Travelling fans get their reward
Out of nowhere Kairat reduced the deficit, Edmilson thumping a terrific volley into the net after Sporting’s defence had gone to sleep to allow Ricardinho to set up the goal.
It was a special moment for the impressive following of a few hundred supporters of the away team who had made the trip of over 8,600 kilometres to the Portuguese capital.
Although a positive night for Sporting, especially considering they gave several players rest time, they may rue missing the chance to rack up a bigger margin of victory given the crucial role goal difference can play in the 36-team league phase of the competition.
Next up for the Portuguese side is a trip to Italy to lock horns with Italian champions Napoli.
Sporting: João Virgínia, Iván Fresneda, Eduardo Quaresma, Gonçalo Inácio, Maxi Araújo (Matheus Reis, 65’), Morten Hjulmand (Zeno Debast, 70’), Giorgi Kochorashvili (Hidemasa Morita, 61’), Geovany Quenda, Francisco Trincão, Pedro Gonçalves (Alisson Santos, 61’), Luis Suárez (Fotis Ioannidis, 61’)
The greatest Portuguese manager of all time – and quite possibly the greatest of any nationality, period – is back where it all started for him. José Mourinho has signed a two-year contract at Benfica.
From the moment Bruno Lage was sacked late on Tuesday night after Benfica’s shock defeat at home to Qarabag in the Champions League, speculation had been rampant that Mourinho would be replacing his fellow Setúbal-born coach.
Benfica president Rui Costa, who runs for re-election at the end of October and has been trailing in the polls, moved fast to secure Mourinho’s services.
Less than 48 hours after Lage’s dismissal, and almost 25 years to the day since a young José Mourinho was unveiled as Benfica’s manager – his first job as a head coach after working as an assistant for Bobby Robson and Louis van Gaal at Porto and Barcelona – the now 62-year-old has returned to the Lisbon giants.
A visibly emotional Mourinho – “I’m feeling so many emotions, but experience enables me to control them” – guaranteed that he has lost none of his passion for football, saying that he wanted to start work in his new position last night and that he felt the exact same passion for football as he has ever done.
Long Ball Futebol podcast: The Special One returns!
Selected quotes from the press conference:
“I’d like to thank the club for showing confidence in me. I’m going to immerse myself in this mission. I’m the coach of one of the biggest clubs in the world.”
“It’s been 25 years, but I haven’t come here to celebrate my career.”
“I would like to say to you, Rui Costa, as the representative of the Benfiquistas all around the world, that none other of the giant clubs that I have had the opportunity to coach has made me feel so honoured, with such a sense of responsibility, so motivated, as I am as the coach of Benfica.”
“Coaching Benfica is returning to my level, given that my level is to coach the biggest clubs in the world.”
Asked about whether he could repeat his famous promise in a press conference as FC Porto coach that he would win the title, Mourinho responded: “Promises are worth what they’re worth. I promised that, and I kept my promise, but I could have not kept my promise. They are promises of a 40-year-old and not a 60-year-old.
“What I can promise, and what I truly believe, is that Benfica have all the conditions to win the championship. We have dropped two points, we’ll drop more for sure, hopefully not many, but we’re [all] pretty much starting from ground zero. And Benfica have enough potential in the squad to be champions.”
Immediately after the press conference Mourinho left to take charge of his first training session. He begins his second spell as Benfica coach in Vila das Aves on Saturday evening with Benfica playing AFS.
The night descends like a question no one dares answer.
A whisper across rooftops, a tremor in empty streets, a heartbeat echoing in forgotten stadiums.
Europe holds its breath.
And somewhere, the ball waits.
Fifteen times, Madrid have turned impossibility into ritual.
Fifteen times, white shirts have glimmered like stars burning in slow motion.
Milan, once gods in red and black, wander in exile, their ghosts trailing memories that flicker like candlelight in a storm.
Liverpool in Istanbul, United in ’99—miracles stitched into the folds of eternity.
Zidane’s volley in 2002—an arrow that pierced time itself, a memory that still trembles in the spine of football.
And tonight… tonight, nothing is written.
Not one name is sacred.
Not one pass guaranteed.
Not one heartbeat predictable.
Ancelotti smiles in the shadow of history.
Guardiola dreams in the silence before the storm.
Everyone trembles on the edge of obsession, chasing glory like it is a phantom in the fog.
Every pass is a kiss.
Every run is a promise.
Every goal a confession.
This is a labyrinth of desire.
A theatre of temptation.
A battlefield where heroes are born in the heartbeat between one touch and the next.
Where villains fall in a single, shattering moment.
The stadiums breathe, a living thing, vibrating with hope, fear, and longing.
The ghosts of legends past whisper, laughing, daring you to believe.
To marvel as miracles unfold in impossible, slow-motion perfection.
It does not merely thrill—it torments.
It seduces.
It leaves you aching, craving, trembling.
And when the final whistle sounds…
When the nets tremble, the floodlights fade, the crowds dissolve into memory…
You will remember this night not as a game, not as a story, but as a ritual.
A confession.
A masterpiece.
A spell that consumed you, reshaped you, whispered into your soul:
This… is football.
This is the Champions League.
EUSÉBIO AND BENFICA: MEMORY AS MAGIC
Eusébio da Silva Ferreira was more than a player. He was a comet hurtling through Lisbon’s streets, Mozambique’s dust and Portugal’s light fused in every stride.
When he ran, time bent. Defenders staggered; nets quivered. Every shot, every dribble, every sudden acceleration was a fracture in chronology—a moment expanded into eternity.
In 1961 and 1962, Benfica did not merely win; they sculpted history. The European Cup became a stage where inevitability and genius collided. Eusébio’s goals were not counted—they were catalogued in memory, the folds of time themselves remembering the strike before it left his foot.
Yet Benfica’s European nights are haunted.
The finals they lost — 1963, 1965, 1968, 1988, 1990 — do not lie in history books as failures alone; they linger like ghosts in the subconscious of the club.
These are memories that stretch forward, colouring each new campaign, bending the perception of time. A young midfielder today feels the shadow of a final lost 60 years ago; a striker hesitates for a heartbeat and remembers a goal that never came.
Loss, in this sense, becomes an instrument of education. Time itself teaches. Memory shapes movement. The ball is a teacher as much as it is an object of desire.
Bella Gutmann, the architect behind Benfica’s early triumphs, understood this.
He was a man who treated strategy as poetry, aligning players in rhythms that anticipated not just the present match but the memory of all that had gone before.
Gutmann’s approach was almost literary—slow, meandering, allowing the team to live in the spaces between seconds, to feel the tempo of history in every pass.
Under him, the ball became a vessel through which time was both stretched and contracted, a medium where nostalgia informed urgency, and memory dictated intelligence.
Benfica’s losses, then, are not failures—they are temporal paradoxes.
They teach that mastery of the present is inseparable from the memory of what has been.
A corner kick in Lisbon today carries the resonance of a missed header in 1965.
A through ball in the 21st century echoes Eusébio’s ghost, the pulse of memory threading the needle between probability and possibility.
Here, football is not simply played. It is experienced, measured in the subtle interplay of memory and tempo.
The Champions League, in its expanded modern form, demands acceleration, repetition, and spectacle—but Portuguese clubs navigate it with a patience born of history, a grace forged in the tension between nostalgia and necessity.
PORTO 1987: THE BACKHEEL THAT BENT HISTORY
The spring of 1987 carried with it a rare alignment of forces. Porto, outsiders in every sense, stood on the threshold of a European Cup final against Bayern Munich, the embodiment of industrial German inevitability. For 25 years, no Portuguese club had lifted the trophy. Benfica’s glory belonged to memory, locked away in sepia tones. Porto arrived not with grandeur but with defiance, carrying the weight of a nation’s longing and the suspicion of the continent that they were guests at a table too fine for them.
Artur Jorge, the architect of this unlikely ascent, was no ordinary figure. His moustache alone seemed to declare resistance—a flourish of individuality, unmistakably Portuguese, that said: we belong here, on our own terms. Jorge understood what every Portuguese coach since has grasped: when the odds lean against you, you bend the rhythm of the game, you stretch time until inevitability breaks.
And then came Juary. Small, wiry, insistent—he was the spark before the fire, the disruption before the miracle. His equaliser was not the polished brushstroke of genius but the raw surge of belief, struck with the urgency of a man who knew that history does not wait for hesitation. Juary’s goal was the crack in Bayern’s armour, the rupture that made the impossible suddenly negotiable. Without it, there could have been no flourish, no backheel, no rewriting of destiny.
Then, as if time itself had been loosened, came the moment—Madjer’s backheel. A flick not of arrogance, but of destiny. A gesture so improbable it seemed to mock logic, to fracture the very idea of predictability. One second, Bayern held control; the next, football itself had turned inside out. That touch was more than a goal—it was a punctuation mark carved into eternity, the precise instant when underdogs became giants.
Beside him, a young Paulo Futre burned across the grass, a winger alive with invention and audacity. He played as if the game were elastic, capable of being reshaped by the sheer force of his imagination. Futre’s dribbles were not only evasions; they were sketches of futures yet to come. In him, you could already glimpse the lineage of Portuguese artistry that would later crystallize in Luís Figo, in Quaresma’s trivelas, in Cristiano Ronaldo’s devastating surges. Futre was a bridge between eras—born of streetlight improvisation, carrying the weight of tradition, and foreshadowing the chaos to come.
That night in Vienna was more than a trophy lift. It was a reordering of perception. Porto had reinserted Portugal into the bloodstream of European football, not with resources or reputation, but with imagination, defiance, and rhythm. Madjer’s backheel did not merely equalize; it redefined what was possible for a club dismissed as peripheral. Futre’s brilliance did not merely dazzle; it announced a template for Portuguese wingers who would turn improvisation into prophecy.
Porto’s victory in 1987 reminds us that Portuguese football’s greatest contribution has never been about sheer domination. It is about disruption. About the sudden moment when time fractures, when the impossible becomes inevitable. About producing gestures—be it a flick, a dribble, a moustached defiance—that linger in memory long after the medals fade.
In that sense, the 1987 triumph was not only a title. It was a rupture in history, a temporal portal through which Portuguese football stepped into its modern self.
JOSÉ MOURINHO AND PORTO 2004: THE ART OF IMPOSSIBLE
The 2003/04 Champions League season was a study in paradox.
Porto, a modest club, wielded the enormity of tactical genius with a surgeon’s precision.
José Mourinho, young yet omnipotent, orchestrated movements that seemed almost prophetic.
Porto’s system relied on relational intelligence: two defensive midfielders folding the pitch, full-backs stretching the field, a central striker exploiting half-moments of hesitation.
Every counterattack was rehearsed yet spontaneous, every defensive line a flexible entity, compressing space and expanding time as the game demanded.
Deco’s orchestration, Derlei’s runs, Costinha’s interceptions, Maniche’s forward momentum—each executed with the precision of a metronome in a concert hall of chaos.
Tactically, Porto taught Europe an important lesson:
With intelligence, discipline, and timing, structural inferiority can be overcome.
With anticipation, a team can compress seconds into defining moments.
With audacity, the improbable becomes ritual.
Mourinho’s genius lay in his manipulation of temporality.
A single touch at the right moment, a perfectly timed press, or a diagonal from Deco could rewrite the narrative of an entire half.
The trophy lifted in Gelsenkirchen was more than silver—it was a testament to mastery of the fourth dimension: time itself.
PORTUGAL’S INFLUENCE ON THE CHAMPIONS LEAGUE
Portugal’s imprint extends far beyond Porto and Benfica. The country exports not only players, but philosophers of the game—coaches, tacticians, creators of rhythm.
José Mourinho, André Villas-Boas, Leonardo Jardim—each leaves fingerprints on European competitions, reshaping tempo and strategy. Their teams manipulate space and time, forcing opponents into crises of perception. Tactical mastery becomes a negotiation, a dialogue, a way of rewriting what is possible on the pitch.
Players like Rui Costa, Deco, Cristiano Ronaldo—names that echo in stadiums from Munich to Madrid—carry with them a Portuguese philosophy of football: the understanding that the game exists not only in the immediate but across generations. A pass today may echo Rui Costa’s geometry; a dribble tomorrow may mirror Deco’s intelligence. Each movement, each decision is both present and memory, both action and reflection.
Portugal’s influence is subtle, hypnotic, and eternal. It is not always reflected in silverware, yet it shapes the very fabric of European football. Clubs with immense resources may dominate physically, but Portuguese teams bend time and space in ways that defy linearity, reminding all that football is a dialogue across eras, not simply a sequence of matches.
Why Portuguese clubs struggle to win: the inevitable paradox
The paradox is structural. Portugal produces genius, but the modern Champions League rewards industrialized power. English, German, and Spanish clubs leverage financial depth to convert probability into certainty. Portuguese clubs must compensate with intelligence, anticipation, and temporal manipulation.
The tactical implication is that Portuguese teams rarely dominate possession or press with relentless physicality for 90 minutes. Instead, they optimize micro-moments: second-half counterattacks, pre-emptive positioning, and calculated bursts of high-intensity play. The philosophy is clear: control time when you cannot control everything else.
UEFA’s expanding format magnifies this challenge. More games, compressed schedules, and increased travel exacerbate small squads’ limitations. Yet, the struggle becomes a pedagogical spectacle: Portugal teaches football as a chessboard of moments, where rhythm, memory, and intelligence often outweigh brute force.
CONCLUSION: TIME, MEMORY, AND THE BALL
And so the Champions League begins anew.
Europe waits, breathless.
And somewhere, Portugal waits too, not with the largest squad, not with the richest purse, but with mastery of rhythm, memory, and time.
The ball, in their hands, is alive.
Every pass is an essay.
Every run is a sonnet.
Every goal is a confession and a prophecy.
Portuguese football teaches a simple truth: victory is fleeting, but influence is eternal.
Memory and urgency coexist, nostalgia becomes strategy, and the Champions League is more than a tournament—it is a theatre of time itself.
This week, two Portuguese clubs step onto the pitch assuming the role of both historian and innovator.
They will honour legends, defy expectations or fall short, bend time or be swallowed by it and remind Europe that football is not merely a game, but a ritual, a spell, a conversation with eternity.
And in that, Portugal triumphs.
Not always in silverware.
Not always in headlines.
But always in memory.
Always in influence.
Always in the heartbeat between one touch and the next.
This is Portuguese football in the Champions League.
Benfica’s shock defeat against Qarabag in Lisbon tonight, on the back of the draw at home to Santa Clara last Friday after playing for an hour with an extra man, have resulted in the dismissal of coach Bruno Lage.
In a press conference that began at 1.20am, Benfica president Rui Costa announced an agreement had been reached with Lage to rescind his contract.
Costa added that a new coach would be in the dugout in time for Benfica’s match at AFS in Vila das Aves in northern Portugal on Saturday, without saying who it would be.
Costa was directly asked if the next coach would be José Mourinho but refused to confirm the strong rumours that the former Porto, Chelsea, Inter Milan and Real Madrid manager (among others), who started his career as a head coach at Benfica in the year 2000, was lined up to take over the Lisbon giants.
“The profile of the next coach will have to be a ‘winning coach’,” was as far as Costa went in relation to his choice of the next manager.
However, moments after the press conference finished, Portuguese TV channel CMTV claimed they had confirmation that everything was agreed with Mourinho to return to the Estádio da Luz.
José Mourinho was hired by Benfica on 20 September 2000.
According to growing reports in Portugal, he will take charge of his first game back at the club on Saturday.
All this is being played out in the backdrop of the upcoming presidential elections at Benfica, in one month’s time, with Costa currently lagging behind João Noronha Lopes in the polls.
Costa is no doubt banking on what would be the spectacular appointment of Mourinho “saving his skin” in terms of the presidential election in addition to bringing success back to Benfica, who have won the Portuguese championship in just one of his four years at the helm.
Real Madrid, Bayer Leverkusen and Napoli will all visit the Estádio da Luz in the coming months but Benfica kicked off the UEFA Champions League league stage by welcoming Azerbaijan champions Qarabağ FK on Tuesday night. It was an apparently favourable clash for the Lisbon giants with the Eagles entering the game as heavy favourites to take all three points. Bruno Lage’s side, however, were put to the test by a spirited and energetic Qarabağ side that challenged them early on and matched them every step of the way.
Benfica took a commanding lead, scoring twice in the first 16 minutes. The visitor, however, responded with a goal in the 30th minute and stunned the home supporters after levelling early in the second half. The Eagles were left frustrated by a well organised Qarabağ defence, and as the game progressed, the home side were stunned with a late knockout blow. Substitute Oleksii Kashchuk came on to record the winner in the 86th minute and pull off a historic upset for the Azerbaijan club.
Benfica go into the break with 2-1 lead after frantic first half
Lage has remained relatively consistent with his starting lineup over the first two months of the season and refrained from making any major changes to a Benfica team that were yet to lose a match this season.
Bosnia and Herzegovina international Amar Dedić returned to the lineup after missing the weekend’s match against Santa Clara due to a suspension. The other notable addition to the starting eleven was Ukrainian Georgiy Sudakov, who was handed his first-ever start for Benfica after his highly publicised move from Shakhtar Donetsk. The attacking midfielder was handed the No. 10 shirt upon his arrival and is expected to take on a pivotal role for the Eagles, playing just behind Vangelis Pavlidis.
Sudakov made his presence felt in the opening minutes, getting involved in the action right away. Benfica earned their first corner of the match in the fifth minute and capitalised on some poor defending. It was an unlikely name that broke the deadlock, with defensive midfielder Barrenechea connecting with a beautifully weighted corner from Sudakov into the penalty area. Barrenechea was unmarked and was barely touched as he leaped onto the ball on the edge of the six-yard box, angling it across the goal it into the far post.
Benfica continued to push forward. Aursnes almost connected with Dedić on a well timed overlapping run in the 9th minute. The keeper, though, was alert and gathered the ball just before the full-back arrived. Aursnes and Dedić continued to work well together down the right side, with Aursnes drifting into the centre and causing problems as the full-back manned the wing.
Sudakov was once again involved for the second goal. In the 15th minute the midfielder found himself with the space just outside the penalty area. After turning, he was able to spot Pavlidis’ run and play a cutting pass. The Ukrainian may consider himself fortunate after the ball bounced off Qarabağ central defenders Kevin Medina and Bahlul Mustafazada and landed at the feet of Pavlidis. The Greek striker was left one-on-one with the keeper inside the box and produced a casual right-footed finish to record his fourth goal of the 2025-26 campaign.
Qarabağ, to their credit, did not fold and did not sit back. The 12-time Azerbaijan league winners stuck with their formation and continued to press up the pitch. Gurban Gurbanov remained with central midfielder hovering above his back four, but continued to push players forward and press Benfica’s defenders.
Portuguese-born Andrade scores for Qarabağ
Qarabağ were eventually rewarded for their courage. The visitors pulled one back in the 30th minute taking advantage when a free kick from the left side of the field was lofted into the box. Benfica’s defenders were unable to clear the danger and it fell at the feet of Leandro Andrade. The Portuguese-born forward rocketed a half-volley past Trubin and into the right side of the goal.
Shortly after their first goal, Qarabağ came close again in the 33rd minute. First, a Camilo Durán header flew just over the bar. Seconds later, a careless pass from António Silva handed the visitors a glorious opportunity to equalise. This time, it was Kady Borges who powered a shot off the post to the relief of Anatoliy Trubin. The danger was not over and from the rebound Trubin had to pull off a sharp save.
Richard Ríos then tried his luck with a long-range effort from the right side of the park. It was an ambitious attempt, and one that didn’t trouble keeper Mateusz Kochalski.
Just before the half, Durán managed to cleverly manoeuvre through the Benfica backline and had a chance to level the match. His shot, though, was well saved by Trubin. Qarabağ would have been confident after some fluid passing produced some dangerous chances in the first half. The visiting side matched Benfica every step of the way, and would have been disappointed going into the break trailing.
Benfica stunned by second-half goals
Qarabağ picked up where they left off in the first half. It didn’t take long for them to level the score. Duran had missed a few clear chances, but was finally able to get on the score sheet in the 48th minute. The Colombian latched onto a perfectly timed through ball from Mustafazada and found the right corner of the goal.
It was a shocking blow for the players and the crowd, with the Luz going silent after Benfica had given up an early two-goal advantage. Suddenly the Eagles were at risk of not only dropping points in their opening CL fixture, but possibly walking away with nothing from this match.
A stunned Benfica regrouped, and as their supporters grew into the match, the home side showed flashes of their quality. In the 54th minute, a driving run from Schjelderup ended with a pass to Rios in the penalty box. the Colombian did well to lose his defender, but his shot sailed wide of the target.
Dedic’s left-foot attempt also cleared the crossbar, but Lage’s side were starting to regain the advantage.
Qarabağ’s Mustafazada had the ball in the net once again in the 64th minute, but the Benfiquistas could breathe a sigh of relief once the assistant referee raised his flag for offside. It was a clear signal to Lage and his players that the visitors were unwilling to sit back and accept a point.
Benfica answered with an attack of their own. Pavlidis was unable to connect with a low cross into the box from the left side after some good defending.
Prestianni and Ivanovic enter the fray
In the 69th minute, Lage finally decided it was time for a change, bringing on Gianluca Prestianni and Franjo Ivanovic for Aursnes and Schjelderup. Pavlidis then emerged with what was probably Benfica’s best chance of the half up until that point, curling a teasing shot over the goal in the 73rd minute.
In the 79th minute, Lage brought on more fresh legs. Leandro Barreiro and Henrique Araújo were tasked with reviving a group that seemed to be running out of ideas.
The changes, however, did not pan out as Lage may have hoped. In a remarkable twist, it was Qarabağ that found a late winner. Benfica’s defenders will have to hold their hands up after simply allowing the Azerbaijan side to tap the ball around in their penalty box. Substitute Oleksii Kashchuk found himself with all the time in the world to turn and fire in a low shot from eight yards out. It was in the simplest of finishes and one that Otamendi and Silva will be frustrated to have allowed.
Lage feeling the heat
What seemed like an exceptional start to the season for Benfica has now turned sour in a very short period of time for Lage and his players. After an uninspiring 2-1 win over newly promoted Alverca prior to the international break, Benfica were held to a 1-1 home draw against Santa Clara on Friday. Tuesday’s Champions League defeat will likely see the pressure pile up on the Portuguese manager, who will have to answer for a string of disappointing performances.
Benfica supporters voice their frustration after the Eagles give up a two-goal lead and are upset in their opening CL league stage game. A memorable win for Azerbaijan club Qarabağ at the Estádio da Luz #Benfica#uefachampionsleaguepic.twitter.com/POun8IB1BR
It looked a mismatch on paper and so it proved. Sporting scored four goals, hit the woodwork twice and missed a penalty as they brushed aside Champions League debutants Kairat Almaty 4-1 in Lisbon this evening. Tom Kundert reports from the José Alvalade stadium.
The greatest Portuguese manager of all time – and quite possibly the greatest of any nationality, period – is back where it all started for him. José Mourinho has signed a two-year contract at Benfica.
The 2003/04 Champions League season was a study in paradox.
Benfica’s shock defeat against Qarabag in Lisbon tonight, on the back of the draw at home to Santa Clara last Friday after playing for an hour with an extra man, have resulted in the dismissal of coach Bruno Lage.
