Benfica heats up late in cold of St. Petersburg

"LONDON — If there were an award for fan base of the year, the followers of Benfica would have to be candidates.

Before Wednesday, Benfica had not won on Russian soil for 20 years, and it traveled to St. Petersburg, Russia, without its first-string goalkeeper and with three members of its back line out because of either injuries or suspension.

That did not discourage 445 hardy Benfica fans from making the 4,500-mile round trip — made longer because there are no direct flights — to cheer on their team in the Champions League in the freezing cold. 

The players kept them waiting. For 70 minutes, the action in the Petrovsky Stadium was as frigid as the weather, before things got red-hot at the finish, when two late goals by Benfica allowed it to take the lead and win the game.

It was the second time in the series that Benfica had broken through Zenit’s overly cautious tactical game. The first leg in Lisbon had been goalless until a header in injury time from Jonas, from Brazil, gave Benfica a 1-0 lead to defend in Russia.

The second game was goalless until the 69th minute, when Hulk, another Brazilian player, scored for St. Petersburg, tying the series on aggregate, 1-1.

Extra time, and possibly the dreaded penalty shootout, loomed until Nicolás Gaitán stole a late goal for Benfica. Six minutes into injury time, yet another Brazilian, Talisca, wrapped up Benfica’s win, sending the Portuguese club to the quarterfinals.

The final score in St. Petersburg was 2-1. The aggregate score of 3-1 made it look as if Benfica had this series comfortably under control. Nothing could be further from the truth.

“We showed in the field how much we wanted to get past Zenit,” said Andreas Samaris of Benfica. “All of us players were ready to serve the team in any position the coach asked.”

Samaris, normally a midfielder, could be called a success as an emergency center-back on Wednesday. He stood up to 96 minutes of battery from Zenit striker Artem Dzyuba, who was assisted by Hulk.

Hulk — also known by his given name, Givanildo Vieira de Souza — is well known to the Portuguese club because he played in their league for Benfica’s great rival, Porto, before heading to Russia.

But it was Dzyuba — big, powerful, awkward and physical — who tested the strange lineup in defense and the second-string Benfica goalkeeper, Ederson. Tested is perhaps a misleading term because Zenit did not press the weakened Benfica defense nearly enough, perhaps because the Russian club is just emerging from its two-month winter break.

“No, I had not played in defense before now,” Samaris responded on television when asked if he had ever played central defense before. “I practiced, of course, but it was something like a test for me tonight.”

Zenit had never lost at home before to a Portuguese opponent, so while we might have expected it to attack the makeshift rear-guard of Benfica, the opposite happened.

Zenit’s coach, André Villa-Boas, is Portuguese and right out of the mode of José Mourinho. Villa-Boas’s preferred method of play is to counterattack, and his catchword is caution. When Villas-Boas spoke on the field before kickoff, he seemed obsessed with a fear of allowing Benfica to score.

Against an opponent wounded at the back and reliant upon a gifted 18-year-old, Renato Sanches, in midfield, this was surely the wrong approach. Villa-Boas will leave St Petersburg after this season and most likely return to Portugal, possibly back to his former club, Porto.

After Wednesday’s game, Zenit’s owners may be pleased to see him leave.

While it is true that no Russian team has overcome the rust from the winter layoff to reach the Champions League quarterfinals in any of the past six seasons, negativity got what it deserved on Wednesday.

When Hulk broke his recent barren streak and headed in an immaculate cross from Yuri Zhirkov, it did seem that the home team was coming out of a deep sleep.

Benfica determined otherwise. It tied the score after 85 minutes when Raúl Jiménez, a substitute with energy to spare, suddenly turned and tried a long shot. Zenit’s goalkeeper, Yuri Lodygin, misjudged it and turned the ball against his own crossbar, and Gaitán pounced on the bounce to knock in the goal. And then, just as it did three weeks before in the first leg, Benfica summoned the greater will to strike with the last kick of the match. Another winner by another Brazilian substitute, this time the tall and slender Talisca."

Rob Hughes, in New York Times