The Benfica Gazette
Match12 Mar 2028
The run at home goes on for Benfica
34 matches unbeaten here. Every visiting manager is asked about it in the week before, which is precisely why it keeps going.
Squad13 Mar 2028
Alex Meret decides it from twelve yards
3 kept out in the shoot-out, and a stadium that will still be describing them in twenty years. A goalkeeper only needs one of these to be remembered forever.
Match12 Mar 2028
Whatever happens, Benfica do not lose
17 games unbeaten now. Some were earned and some were survived, but a habit is forming — and habits are the hardest thing in football to play against.
Match9 Mar 2028
Benfica do the business in Europe
1‑1. Continental football is where a club finds out what it actually is, and Benfica came through the finding-out well against VfB Stuttgart.
Squad13 Mar 2028
Richard Ríos signs on for more
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Richard Ríos and Benfica agree another 5 years.
Squad13 Mar 2028
A falling-out at Benfica
João Palhinha and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Market13 Mar 2028
Fredrik Aursnes wants more than Benfica are offering
“I have ambitions, and I would like the club to share them.” Nobody has asked to leave and nobody has been shown the door — but a player chooses that sentence carefully, and a boardroom hears it exactly as it was meant.
Player ratings13 Mar 2028
Mario Dorgeles runs at them all day
Successful dribbles: 21. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
The terraces13 Mar 2028
The crowd has taken to Mario Dorgeles
At 23 he is being sung about by people twice his age, which is an affection a signing has to earn over years and a local kid gets for turning up. It is also the hardest thing in football to live up to.
In brief
- Market One of our own: Andre Soares joins the Benfica first team
- Market One of our own: Marco Oliveira joins the Benfica first team
- Market One of our own: Bruno Gomes joins the Benfica first team