pachman40

Don't forget that Benfica is the big fish in the small pond. The press is prob 74% Benfica, 15% Sporting, 10% Porto, and 1% everyone else. The players can't forget these things cuz the press badgers the hell out of them. "Hey Cardozo, I saw you frown on Monday morning at 11:42 for about 3 seconds, is that because you're mad about the missed penalty on Terry last game?" Its garbage and they're just filling newspapers with nonsense and its not a representation of our team's mood or attitude, its just press starting shit.

I agree, I can't believe I'm saying this, but the Champions League is not even a realistic dream, so let's move on and work hard against Sporting this weekend. Its impossible to expect a result today with our injuries in the back AND chasing the tie. I wouldn't be surprised if we lose by 3 or 4. Let's try to play well today, then focus on the league.

Agreed, last thing I want to talk about is refs and linesman, I'd much prefer a good game by all 3 teams.

News in Portugal is that Luisao is out as well. We're fucked. Garcia gonna play in defense instead of midfield, and no clue who's gonna play the other CB role. Dear God if Emerson plays CB I will literally cry. If Chelsea don't score 3-4 goals today against this horrid situation then its a disgrace. We know we're giving up goals, question will be whether we can pop in a couple and make a game of it. It could get ugly.

Agreed, Jesus yaps too much, but its all about context. You expect the guy to say "we're gonna lose, Chelsea are too good"? If portuguese press ask him he's gonna put a positive spin for the fans, its the least he should do. Players same scenario, nobody quotes the question asked, they just quote a player saying we can win, or we should score, or things like that. What do you expect the poor guys to say?

Ummm, excuse me, pardon the interruption, hate to be a bother, but just wondering if David Luiz can be loaned back to Benfica for just this one game? It seems as though we don't have any central defenders and Chelsea have a couple to spare. We'll even take Paulo Ferreira, he's played a few games in the centre, no? Seriously, the Luisao news is very deflating, it was bad enough relying on one healthy CB with the 3 others hurt, but this is a little ridiculous. I don't know, I just don't. Normally I'd say screw it and play Luisao at 50% is better than nothing but with the other fixtures coming up and Barca waiting for the winner I'm inclined to say forget it for this competition and try to get him back healthy for our next game against Sporting. This sucks!

Getting back to the match.... we're having a couple of interesting discussions on the portuguese forums regarding how we approach not only the second leg of the Chelsea tie but also the fixture congestion we have. We all know that Chelsea has a crazy couple of weeks and that forced a lot of the rotation / starting choices last game by RDM. The fortunate part for Chelsea is that there is depth everywhere and when Ferreira, Kalou, Mikel, even Torres come in they are strong enough and more importantly hungry enough so that the team's level doesn't fall off drastically. At Benfica, we have to be honest and say that we don't have the same depth. We have to play our strongest 11 most every game with some flexibility in the attacking side. Our defense and mids have no depth and flexibility whatsoever. That's why you saw a substitution like Matic coming in forcing Witzel to play out of position on the wing where he has zero influence. That's also why Jardel got a sniff of the field when he deserves to be nowhere near it. Anyways, that's Benfica's problem to have and Chelsea's problem to exploit. To give some perspective here, Benfica are fighting for the title, 2 points behind Braga and 1 point behind Porto. The league title is our highest priority since its the most realistic. Nobody in Portugal believe there's a chance in hell to win the CL so we have to balance things. We play Braga on Saturday in a game that can make or break our season. Then comes the Chelsea second leg followed by another huge game against Sporting in the league. We also have the league cup final coming up where we had to beat Porto in the semis within the last couple of weeks to advance. We are doing all this without the flexibility we would like to rotate the squad. Therefore we have to pick our battles and I think the team is getting tired and worn out. This is not an excuse since its Benfica's responsibility to maintain a deep squad that can fight on 3 fronts at once. So now comes the question for Benfica, do we leave it all out on the field and fight tooth and nail against a very strong Braga team and just let the chips fall against Chelsea? I think that will be the strategy and I think Chelsea will benefit from that mentality. If we lose to Braga on Saturday though then we'll have to put everything out there on Wednesday. For us its all about whether or not we win the league since we won't finish worse than 3rd and we'll have Champions League next season. Huge game Saturday which will impact our philosophy for Wednesday. Chelsea, from where I'm sitting, are going to push all-in on Wednesday knowing that 4th is unlikely and knowing that winning the CL might me the only way to get in next season. As a Chelsea fan, its a positive scenario that will prevent complacency and over-confidence in the team. I don't have a good feeling as a Benfica fan going into the second leg, but if we pop in a quick goal in the first 15 mins then all of a sudden its advantage Benfica. We'll know more after Saturday's game what kind of strategy Benfica will use, until then its not worth speculating. Pulling my blue shirt on for a minute, I hope we come out guns blazing on Wednesday and take the game to Benfica, that's the key to victory and advancing. Sitting back and playing on the counter once again is only inviting danger. Come on blues!!!! ......Pulling my Benfica shirt back on, I'm hoping for a big win Saturday so that our focus returns to the league, although that will likely be at the expense of the CL.

Some Chelsea fans are real tossers too, but I don't let that influence how I feel about the club in general. Benfica fans are proud and sometimes a little too defensive, but the club itself is respectful, storied, and nothing to look down at the way some Chelsea fans and most British fans do. Its hard to stay classy when people dismiss us simply cuz of the league we play in. I hate Porto with a passion but I still give them a lot of respect for what they've done in Europe recently, and even they don't get the respect they deserve for their accomplishments. Frustrating, but I'm still enjoying myself. Cheers!

Good find, I agree with most everything in that article. Also, their match report reflects a lot of what I was already thinking.

Agreed, he was definitely challenging one on one and got a lot of dangerous crosses into dangerous areas. He didn't have a bad game by any stretch but he has a lot more to give based on watching him week in and week out.

Doesn't look like it, the press is suggesting he may be back for the weekend game against Sporting right after the second leg so you never know. Garay is a very strong CB who can cover up for a lot of Emerson's deficiencies and would've made a huge difference for us. Benfica's left side of defense with Jardel and Emerson is subpar even for a second division Portuguese league team. Just think, last season Benfica's starting left back was Coentrao and left centre back was David Luiz, not too shabby eh? Also, its still a mystery why we leave an experienced solid world and european champion LB like Capdevilla on the bench while insisting on Emerson who is blatantly Benfica's weakest link on the field.

Agreed, he wasn't brilliant but he brightened things up a couple of times playing amongst a team who had a dim day. Maybe if the real Benfica shows up next leg we'll see Gaitan at his potential.

Any opinions on what people saw from Gaitan yesterday?

I'll come back with some more in depth comments, but just quickly.... everyone is hilarious here with their comments about Benfica's quality and all of a sudden Napoli would beat us, and we should've had 4-5, and I'd never expect to meet a team so poor at this stage of the CL, etc... has anyone actually stopped to think that Benfica had a bad game relative to their potential? Chelsea have tons more experience at this stage and players who have been through the battles and Benfica have a young team that weren't mentally ready, period. The first half even Chelsea were surprised at how Benfica held back and didn't push offensively. Believe me, Benfica fans were surprised as well. We couldn't string easy passes together, were afraid to make mistakes, and generally playing like hot garbage. Instead of getting all high and mighty about how poor Benfica were, Chelsea fans should be disappointed that Benfica weren't made to pay more for their off game. Do you know why Benfica weren't made to pay? Its because Chelsea weren't anything special yesterday either. It was a shit game all around where tactically both coaches played too timidly and were afraid to go out for the win. I'm not one to cry about refs, but the game was 0 - 0 at the time of the JT play and if that pen was given I'm not sure how happy everyone here would be today with RDM's tactics. Personally I think it was a clear penalty, others have mentioned how most defender go out in that situation with their arms pinned back behind their backs but JT had his arms out. If the situation was reversed and Jardel had his arms out when Torres crossed to Kalou for the goal and blocked it "at close proximity" I'm sure everyone here would say its NEVER a penalty. The good news from a Benfica standpoint is that even though we played miles from our best, we are only one goal down and Chelsea can easily be had. Again, this post isn't to start shit, its just a reality check for those people who are booking their flights to Barcelona.

I want to preface my comments by saying that I haven't read any news headlines, haven't read any of the game-day thread, and haven't read any post game discussion in this thread. I just want to make comments based on my observations without being influenced one way or the other. If I end up way off base on anything I apologize in advance. Now that I got that out of the way...... Congrats to Chelsea for a well-earned victory in a tough environment. RDM has gigantic balls to come out with the starting 11 he did and I'm happy that it played out well for him. The boys were disciplined, well organized, and played a perfect Champions League away game. Luiz, my man, was fantastic. Torres did well, Kalou deserves a big high 5. Ashley Cole was immense, and Ramires was a man possessed out there. To be honest, I thought Chelsea gave Benfica a little too much respect and could've pushed the game a bit more but I guess the strategy was to keep a clean sheet and nick an away goal, and who am I to argue with that. I have to say something about Mr. Gary Neville. As a Benfica fan he made me want to throw up in my mouth many times throughout the game. I don't know who got to him, but he was riding Chelsea's ball-sack all game long and was the most biased commentator I have heard in ages. For a former Man U player to be so pro-Chelsea was shocking to begin with but some of his observations were so over the top it was ridiculous. Also, some of the little facts and stats that were thrown out by these clowns trying to "inform" the viewer about Benfica were just plain wrong and they lost any credibility among anyone who actually knows anything about Benfica. There's no harm in saying that they are unfamiliar with the Portuguese side, but to read garbage about the team to try and prove they know something is an insult. Regarding Benfica, I thought we deserved a better result and we didn't get any credit whatsoever from the commentary. We created a lot of chances and pinned Chelsea back for long periods in the second half. We had a ball cleared off the line, a blatant JT penalty denied, and had no bounces go our way. I thought Chelsea were very very smart to exploit our extremely weak link at LB. Normally Garay is there to help useless Emerson but he's been injured for a couple of weeks and his replacement Jardel is simply not good enough against stronger competition. Gaitan showed glimpses of brilliance and I maintain that he would be amazing in a Chelsea shirt. Like I said before, I don't know what comments are out there, but I hope people are not very quick to write Benfica off. We were far from our best and played very timid and nervous in the first half. The real Benfica came out in the second half and could have easily popped one in. Next week will be a completely different game from both sides. Chelsea will be more open and attacking (I think) and Benfica will have less pressure playing away from home with nothing to lose. This tie is only halfway and I hope nobody is counting their chickens. You guys only caught a glimpse of what Benfica are capable of and the second leg is wide open. I mean no disrespect with this post, I'm writing it from the point of view of a Benfica fan hoping to give you guys a different perspective. That doesn't make me any less of a Chelsea fan, I still love the blues, and I still hope the best team wins. If that's Chelsea I'll be extremely proud and will continue cheering them with everything in me!

I have no issues with what he did at all. The press are the only ones making it a big deal, they're even misrepresenting Jesus' comments and spinning them out of context to make it seem like a bigger deal to him and the club. Drogs can react however he wants, that's his choice and no skin off my nose.

Sorry, haven't been around much, but just to answer a few questions....He's a great player with loads of potential. He was on fire the first half of the season but has had a slower second half of the season coming off an injury. His importance to the team is less than you would think simply because we have a lot of attacking options and change tactics depending on the opponent. Generally, when healthy he's a sure starter especially against teams that need to be opened up but he sometimes gets lost in a physical game. That is mostly because he has a smaller frame and is still developing. One thing Benfica has done is get him to beef up and pack in some muscle so we'll see if he's turned the corner in that aspect of his game. He's extremely versatile, able to play on both wings but definitely superior on the left side. He also slots in nicely at number 10, to be honest would be a great compliment to Mata and would give Chelsea some much needed width. Would he want to leave? I'd hate to see him go but let's be realistic, Gaitan didn't grow up in Argentina dreaming of playing for Benfica, so realistically money talks. That's not to say he's a gold-digger or has the mercenary mentality of a Tevez but sadly we won't be able to keep him. That being said, he's getting enough visibility with Benfica to get called up and play on a strong Argentina side. He's also playing side by side with one of his heroes Aimar, as well as other Argentine internationals Saviola and Garay so he's not in a rush to leave. How much would he cost? His buyout is 40M euros and he has a lot of the big European clubs sniffing around knowing he's not going to be cheap, so he's not going anywhere for under 30M. I see his actual sale price 30-35M. Given the players out there available around the same price, I think he'd be the perfect choice for Chelsea given his age and untapped potential. Keep a close eye on him for our Champions League tie, I have a feeling you'll see flashes of brilliance but don't expect a dominant performance where he takes over the game because his role is more along the lines of a team player that will raise everyone's game around him as opposed to highlight after highlight.

To be honest, I see a scoring draw in this match. I'll be very surprised if Chelsea don't score today given Benfica's "offense first, defense second" mentality. I would also be very surprised if Benfica doesn't score today for the same reason, lots of offensive weapons. Hoping for a good entertaining match without frustrating ref controversies. Also, I hope RDM plays Luiz and gives the fans an opportunity for a classy reception...also, he's the right decision tactically in my opinion to help transition, push the pace, and try to take advantage of Benfica's weak left side of defense. GAME ON!!!!!!!

They will be greeted like heroes, especially Luiz. Ramires only played the one season with us and we all knew during that season that he wasn't going to stick around too long before he got snapped up, but Luiz came into Benfica as an underdog and surprised everyone. He was a fan favorite and always treated Benfica with respect and our fans will definitely return the favor when he returns.

Not sure which forum you've been cruising but I'm on a few of them and I don't agree with you at all. Let's try keeping this civil without throwing around those interpretations which others here will assume to be facts. Us Benfica fans are a confident bunch and we definitely are happy to avoid Madrid, Barca, and Bayern just like you guys are, and we normally match up well against English opponents, so its easy to see how we are happy with the draw. Chelsea this season are far from the powerhouse they were a few years ago so there is a belief that Chelsea can be had at this stage, are we wrong in any of this? I wouldn't equate excitement and confidence to arrogance and delusion. Benfica are going to be really tough but I don't people in Portugal truly feel we are favorites and likely to pass, but the sentiment is truly that we have a lot better chance than most people are giving us credit for. Lastly, I'm not much of a poster here but I read a lot and I was really happy with how classy the Napoli/Chelsea relationship became, let's not start off on the wrong foot here because as I said before Chelsea are really seen positively in Portugal and have a lot of portuguese fans because of all the portuguese links to Chelsea. This tie can be just as classy as the previous one so let's not let it go off the rails just yet.

What a draw!!!!!!!! My 2 favourite teams in the world drawn against each other, my heart is divided. Benfica is in my soul and in my family's soul, but Chelsea have become more than a passing fancy. I can't wait!!!!!!!!!!!!!! It will be amazing to see the reception that David Luiz and Ramires (especially Luiz) receive from the crowd in Lisbon, no doubt it will be a hero's welcome for them before the game but once kickoff comes it will be all bets off. My hope is for entertaining games with fair referees and both teams pushing for goals. One thing is for sure, Benfica will be out there to test Chelsea's defense with some really skilled attacking players. People can say that Chelsea dealt well with Napoli's potent offense but Benfica are more accustomed than Napoli to playing English opponents and doing well. To be honest, Chelsea would do well to push offensively against Benfica as their strength is in attack. Luisao and Garay are solid as they come in central defense but Emerson at left back can be exploited, definitely the weak link. Maxi Pereira at rightback is solid and rarely has an off game.You guys will see an amazing central midfielder in Axel Witzel, definitely a star in the making. His box to box style fits perfectly in our midfield combining with defensive rock Javi Garcia and our maestro Aimar pulling the strings. When things are tight and we're holding onto a lead Matic (remember him) will come in to help solidify the middle. No shortage of attacking options with Gaitan, Nolito, and Bruno Caesar interchangably roaming the wings. The strikers are strong with Cardozo having a rocket left foot extremely dangerous at free kicks. Rodrigo is the next big striker for Spain while Nelson Oliveira is the next big striker for Portugal (doesn't say much since that's been Portugal's weak spot for years). These 3 strikers have kept Saviola on the bench, definitely a strong asset to have on the bench. Hopefully people here don't take Benfica too lightly or risk being disappointed. Normally Chelsea sees a lot of positive press in Portugal due to the numerous links Chelsea has with Portuguese football although the propaganda machine is already working showing Chelsea players shall we say "not scared" to be drawn against us. Anyways, I'm not here to cheer for Benfica against Chelsea as they are both near and dear to me. I hope nobody takes offense this post cuz I'm simply trying to give those of you who are less familiar with Benfica some perspective of who you'll be facing. I watch them week in and week out so feel free to discuss anything Benfica with me and a few other Portuguese posters sprinkled in the forum. Here's hoping for a great tie where the best team wins! Either way I win cuz I'll have a team in the semis.

A lot of people want Benfica (obviously no doubting that they are an easier draw than Madrid or Barca) but how do you guys feel knowing that Benfica would like to draw Chelsea? Honestly, Benfica line-up really well against Chelsea and usually do well against English opposition...be careful what you ask for, just sayin'

When a player signs a contract and wants to renegotiate early or transfer out cuz he's playing great we all flip out and talk about how unprofessional they are and disrespectful to their club. This guy signs a contract, plays decently when called upon, and is a classy professional and people have the balls to call him out for not having enough ambition? Disgusting. In hindsight, we are not getting good value from for the wages he's receiving, but that is management's choice. At any point we could have negotiated a release from his player contract and signed him in a coaching capacity. Bottom line is that Paulo is obviously a respected member of the dressing room and he's respected by management, otherwise he would not be in his position right now, I think that respect should be shown by some people on this forum as well. Regarding the Kalou comparison, I don't think its the same situation. Kalou gets shit because of his play on the field regardless of his wage bill. He could be paid 60,000 a week or free and people would have the same reaction to his play. Ferreira's situation is completely different.

Success breeds high expectations, but I don't think even Roman EXPECTS the champions league out of this guy next season. Personally, I would expect the premier league next season because the players we have are more than good enough to win it, but we would need the older players to buy-in to AVB and show him respect. I think you'll see a big bounceback year from Lamps, Torres, etc... because they have a lot to prove and will have some of that fire back in their bellies and Mr. AVB will win over all the doubters.

In reality it doesn't matter in the slightest, I said that more to give some context to the situation in Portugal. BTW, you have the best sig ever in the history of the world, every time I see it I can't help but crack a smile.