Football fans around the world were treated to yet another Clássico on Wednesday, which had a lot of what we’re already used to. This traditional curtain-raiser to the domestic football season saw both teams battle for a title that has eluded Benfica more often than not when they encounter their northern rivals.

The build up to the match had a lot of the typical off-field antics: directing pressure onto the referee, suspensions that were suspended, and of course, the mind games.

With the departure of Gonçalo Ramos just a few days before the match, Roger Schmidt and his staff faced a significant challenge. For many, it seemed that the obvious solution was to start Musa, but the German manager tried to pull a rabbit out of a hat.

SCH-PECIAL SURPRISE?

In our WhatsApp group, there were some who actually mentioned the potential of playing with a false 9. Roger Schmidt only deployed that formation three times last season, and in those matches, he had Gonçalo Guedes to play in that false 9 role.

Our group was littered with a variety of opinions. Some were hopeful that it would work, while others began comparing Roger Schmidt to Jorge Jesus, who occasionally had moments of reinventing the wheel in him.

I personally wasn’t too bothered by it. We knew that Porto would come out guns blazing, as they typically do, therefore, the hope would be that we could explore Rafa’s pace in behind with Porto so high up the field. The problem was that we were not able to break that first line of pressure often enough, and we gave the ball away cheaply in our defensive third more often than not.

The opening 30 minutes of the match were clearly in favor of Porto, but they weren’t able to do much with it. A few half chances, but I can’t remember any legitimate saves Ody had to make.

Around the half-hour mark, Benfica started to come out of their shell.

It was as if they had absorbed all the pressure they expected, and Porto’s high level of intensity was now dropping off, as would also be expected.

Roger Schmidt’s men started to see more of the ball further up the field, giving us a glimpse of what was to come in the second 45.

ACKNOWLEDGED & RECTIFIED

A manager’s job is to understand his team’s strengths, but to also understand and rectify his own mistakes.

Whether you want to call it a mistake, or if Roger Schmidt’s plan was to fill the midfield in the first half to absorb pressure, at halftime, he made the obvious changes.

I said to a friend around the 30 minute mark that our left side was useless.

Mihailo didn’t make any defensive mistakes, but offensively, he wasn’t able to get up the field. He broke Porto’s line of pressure a few times, but then the pass wasn’t always successful. Ahead of him, João Mário also struggled.

Our left side was full of misplaced passes, making Porto’s defensive duties significantly easier, also unbalancing the team at times.

At the break, Musa and Jurásek came on to replace Mihailo and João Mário.

Aursnes would move to the left, where he featured 90% of the 22/23 campaign, and Musa would now be our focal point up top.

Those two changes drastically altered Benfica’s performance.

We now had someone to battle with Marcano and Pepe when we had to go long. Musa was also able to come short to hold up play, allowing our midfielders to get forward.

On the left, Jurásek is more capable of getting up the line, and Aursnes was a carbon copy of what we saw last season.

And in the midfield… João Neves… WHAT A PERFORMANCE!

LITTLE JOHN MASTERCLASS

He had already stood out in the first half, but he maintained a high level performance in the second half, until he came off in the 75th minute, likely due to his yellow card.

In A Bola’s player rankings, they gave him an 8 out of 10, and the player of the match. Along with that rating, there were a lot of comparison’s to João Moutinho.

Truth be told, despite his small stature, he showed an incredible level of maturity, and a fearless mentality. There wasn’t a challenge he wasn’t willing to go into, whether it was in the air or on the ground.

That performance may have put a stake in the ground. While their characteristics are slightly different, Florentino may struggle to find himself as a regular in the starting XI this season.

As they said in A Bola… Que gigante de 18 anos!

FIRST TIME SINCE 1985

After 13 meetings in the final of the Supertaça against Porto, it’s incredible to think that we’ve only emerged victorious two times. Yesterday was the first time in the lifetime of many Benfica fans that we lifted the Supertaça against Porto.

It felt good to come out on top, against a rival that seems to always have us figured out.

Let us not forget that this was just a small step in the right direction. It’s easy to go into a state of euphoria after a result like that, but it was one match, simply that.

Monday, we begin yet another marathon at the Estádio do Bessa against Boavista. I’m hopeful that we can take the momentum from yesterday’s match to start the domestic season with three points.

Let me know in the comments below what you thought of the match.

Chora Bebé!