Benfica had faced Milan twice, both times in a European Cup final. At the third attempt they won
Dodi Lukébakio scored after sixteen minutes and Jakub Kaminski added a second early in the second half at San Siro. The only previous competitive meetings were the 1963 and 1990 European Cup finals, and Benfica lost both.
Benfica won 2-0 at San Siro on the opening matchday of the Europa League league phase. Dodi Lukébakio put them ahead after sixteen minutes and Jakub Kaminski, who had made the first goal, scored the second shortly after the interval.
It is the first time the Portuguese club has beaten Milan in a competitive match. The two had met only twice before in a real fixture, and Benfica lost both: the 1963 European Cup final at Wembley and the 1990 final in Vienna. Sixty-three years after the first of those nights, at the third time of asking, the result finally went the other way.
How the goals came
Lukébakio drew a routine save from Mike Maignan on fifteen minutes. A little over a minute later he cut inside from the right and curled the ball beyond the France goalkeeper into the far corner. Heorhiy Sudakov hit the woodwork moments afterwards.
The second arrived from a low Souffian El Karouani cross from the left, which Kaminski met first time. Milan sent on Christian Pulisic, Diego Moreira and Adrien Rabiot in search of a way back, and never found the chance they needed.
The numbers point the other way
Milan finished with the better expected-goals figure, 0.96 against 0.64, and Benfica spent most of the night without the ball at 39.6% possession. They won on finishing, which is roughly how they took three points in Funchal at the start of the league season.
Across the halfway line stood Gonçalo Ramos, a Benfica academy product now leading the Milan attack. He had three shots, more than any other Milan player, and hit the target with none of them. That subplot was already written before kick-off, as the preview to this fixture set out: Ramos, Diego Moreira, Rúben Amorim in the dugout and Rui Costa in the stands, four Portuguese careers crossing on one Italian evening.
Benfica now have eight straight wins in all competitions and host Celtic next. Milan, without a win in three, travel to Salzburg.
By Vasco Almada
Image: Prelvini / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0)
