Benfica will play host to Braga on Sunday in a match that promises to be extremely competitive. Despite the majority of the previous results between these two sides heavily favoring Benfica, apart from last season’s match at the Estádio da Luz, Carlos Carvalhal will surely have studied his opponent very well.

Both come into this match off the back of very different results.

At the Estádio da Luz, Benfica had to fight until the very last seconds to snatch a point from the hands of Steven Gerrard’s Rangers, who looked destined to take all three points back to Glasgow. We now shall see if having played with 10 men for over 70 minutes on a wet and heavy pitch will impact Benfica’s fitness levels on Sunday.

Although it was just a draw, given the circumstances and how they managed to come back from two goals down, it surely felt like a victory. From the overall performance, I noted two positive takeaways.

First, the team’s ability to respond and overcome adversity. Having been down 1-3 at home, and with 10 men for so long, they never put their head down and just accepted the result. Dare I say it, if this was last season, at least in the second half of the season, I think Rangers would have boarded their plane back to Scotland with a significant victory, likely by more than two goals considering they were up 1-3.

After Otamendi’s sending off, for large parts of the match Benfica looked unable to respond, or even unwilling to take any chances, in fear of conceding again. And while we can surely point the finger at Gerrard for his inability to kill off the match with a two goal lead and a man advantage, we must also give credit to Jorge Jesus and his squad. While it’s always easy to criticize when they don’t play well, we must also be able to give credit when credit is due.

The second positive takeaway for me was the reemergence of Rafa.

During his time at Benfica, he’s consistently been inconsistent, if that makes sense. While one match he looks absolutely unstoppable (Sporting away last season), you then have other matches where you even forget he’s on the pitch.

On Thursday, he was the man of the match by a long shot, and put in an absolute shift defensively and offensively. His only problem in my opinion is the inconsistencies, and, his inability to be able to mix his speed with the possession of the ball.

His first step is incredibly fast, but once he gets going, he tends to lose the ball in his feet. If only he could figure out a way to even slow down by half a step, but dribble with pace, it would be very difficult to stop him.

I hope that as Jorge Jesus said about Darwin and Waldschmidt in his post-match press conference, Rafa will be like a bullet on Sunday.

For Braga, a 4-0 defeat in Leicester on Thursday was not the ideal result coming into this match, but, we all know that the Minhotos went into that Europa League match with their eyes set on Sunday.

Looking at Carlos Carvalhal’s history against Benfica, in the Portuguese League, if I’m not mistaken, he has not defeated Benfica since a 4-1 victory in the 2004/05 campaign, at the time when he managed Belenenses.

He has gone up against Benfica with Jorge Jesus in the hot seat in 2009/10, at the time when he managed Sporting. Benfica managed a scoreless draw at the Estádio Alvalade, while at the Estádio da Luz, Benfica emerged victorious, 2-0.

This time around though, I expect a Braga side motivated and hungry to build off their victory in Lisbon just a few months ago in the 2019/20 campaign, at the time led by Ruben Amorim.

Knowing that Benfica’s defensive line has had some problems, departures and injuries, I expect the visitors will have a clear and obvious game plan to exploit that.

Jorge Jesus will have to be extremely cautious of Galeno, who given his pace, as we saw against Rangers on Thursday, that could cause all sorts of headaches for Benfica’s defenders.

Taking into consideration this will be the last match before the international break, I don’t expect either manager to rest or rotate any players, unless of course anyone is on the verge of an injury due to fatigue.

My only question is who will Jorge Jesus opt for in the center of the park? We know Taarabt is likely an automatic on the teamsheet given that the manager likes his characteristics, so who will be the chosen one to play alongside him?