The Benfica Gazette
Match29 Aug 2026
Benfica win it in stoppage time
The board had gone up, the arguing had started, and then the ball was in the net in the 90th minute. Vitoria Guimaraes will replay every second of the added time for a week.
Player ratings31 Aug 2026
Vangelis Pavlidis scores twice — 8.48
Two goals and a mark of 8.48 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
Squad31 Aug 2026
Sandro Vidigal gets the move he always wanted
Footballers are asked about their boyhood club so often that nobody listens to the answer. Sandro Vidigal has just signed for Benfica, and for once the answer mattered.
Squad31 Aug 2026
Rafa in a row with a teammate
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Benfica this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Market31 Aug 2026
Eyes on Anísio Cabral again
The phone has started ringing about Anísio Cabral again, and this time the name on the line is Guidonia Montecelio. Benfica are listening politely and promising nothing.
Match29 Aug 2026
Benfica get the job done against Vitoria Guimaraes
A 2‑1 win over Vitoria Guimaraes, earned rather than given, and the sort of afternoon that sends everyone home talking about next week instead of this one.
Player ratings31 Aug 2026
Nobody could get near Dodi Lukébakio
Successful dribbles: 19. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Squad31 Aug 2026
The manager makes an example of Sandro Vidigal
“If you cannot run for the shirt, somebody else will wear it.” No name was used and none was needed; every player in that room knew who it was for.
Squad31 Aug 2026
Leandro Barreiro dropped after a run of poor form
The one version of being left out a player cannot argue with, and the one he takes worst. Somebody else has been better and the team sheet says so, in public, every week until it changes.
In brief
- Player ratings The one thing António Silva could not do
- Player ratings Fredrik Aursnes keeps on missing
- Market Sandro Vidigal arrives on loan