Uefa Champions League Round of 16, second leg: Borussia Dortmund (0) v Benfica (1), Wednesday, kick-off 11.45pm (UAE)
Beware a Borussia Dortmund scorned. Since the German club returned from Lisbon perplexed at how they had not converted any of their chances, fluffed a penalty and ended up losers of the first leg of their last-16 Uefa Champions League tie with Benfica, a pent-up frustration has been unleashed on others.
First there was Wolfsburg, thumped 3-0. Then Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang let off some steam. He had seen his spot-kick saved by the excellent Ederson at Estadio da Luz. Last season’s Bundesliga Player of the Year and leading goalscorer stuck twice in the 3-0 demolition of Freiburg. On Saturday, Aubameyang added another two goals in the six Dortmund put past Bayer Leverkusen.
That’s 12 goals Dortmund have scored in their last three games. Not since October has any opponent come to the Westfalen arena and left with a clean sheet. So Benfica’s narrow advantage looks a frail alibi, even if they are bound to have greeted the news that Dortmund’s Marco Reus pulled a thigh muscle in the Leverkusen match and will need a period of recuperation with some relief.
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The absence of Reus takes out one of the sprinters in Dortmund’s attack, but it hardly leaves them short of acceleration, not with Aubameyang, Ousmane Dembele and Andre Schurrle at large. Quite a challenge for the veteran at the heart of Benfica’s defence.
That man is Luisao, who played his 500th match for Benfica in the first leg, a day after his 36th birthday. He did not master all of Dortmund’s dashers and sprinters entirely in his long stride, but his interceptions and anticipations were partly responsible for protecting the clean sheet.
“He’s an inspiration to the rest of us,” said Ljubomir Fejsa, his colleague and a relieved teammate at the halfway point of this tie. Fejsa’s handball had given away the penalty Ederson saved.
In the 13 and a half years Luisao has spent in Lisbon, since the Portuguese club paid Cruzeiro in his native Brazil barely €1 million (Dh3.89m) for him, he has become the club’s constant, its emblem. He is used to a high turnover of players around him because Benfica are shrewd recruiters and successful sellers.
Luisao has been tutor to a young David Luiz, before his fellow defender and compatriot moved on to Chelsea, the captain when the likes of Angel Di Maria, Ramires, Nemanja Matic and Renato Sanches were developing their reputations at the Luz.
He has never passed unnoticed. At six-foot-five, lean and shaven-headed, he stands out, comfortable playing the ball out of defence and a towering asset at set pieces. It was Luisao, winning a header, the lofty target for a corner kick, who set up the goal — scored by Kostas Mitroglou — that gives Benfica their slender edge against Dortmund with 90 minutes to play.
He should make his 123rd appearance in European competition on Wednesday night. Two of those matches ended with his collecting silver medals, in the successive Europa League finals of 2013 and 2014.
There was a losing semi-final in the same competition in 2011, and if there is one thing the Luisao album lacks it is the photo of him with a major international or European trophy in the frame. There have been five Portuguese league titles with Benfica, and numerous domestic Cups, but a number of near-misses beyond the borders of the country where he has made his career.
He has over 40 caps for Brazil, went to two World Cups with his country but never strayed beyond the substitutes’ bench in either. He has heard more than once or twice the suggestion that, had he moved to a club in Germany, Spain, Italy or England, he might have benefited from a higher profile, been more valued by Brazil’s managers.
But his reward for being a benfiquista for most of his adult life is adulation, and, according to the club’s current president, an imminent new contract there until he is in his 40th year. Benfica need his savvy, his wisdom and will count on it in one of Europe’s most atmospheric, intimidating theatres on Wednesday night.
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