Barcelona, November 24 (BNA): Benfica drew 0-0 in the Champions League at Camp Nou on Tuesday evening, which means that the second team that qualifies for the last 16 of Group E behind Bayern Munich will be decided in the tournament. The final match of the group stage.
Barcelona are two points ahead of Benfica with only one game left, but they face an uphill task in the last group when they travel to Germany to take on Bayern, who have a perfect winning record so far. Meanwhile, Benfica hosts its guest, Dynamo Kiev, who did not win any home win in Lisbon in their last match, according to Reuters.
The Benfica coach said on Monday that “a draw would be worse for Barcelona” and was sincere in his words. Benfica defended solidly, locking in attacks with a solid five-man defensive line, leaving Barcelona in control of the ball most of the time – but well out of the team’s goal.
But for Barcelona, the match was a disappointing struggle, and they now have just two goals to their name in five matches in the group stage of the tournament.
Barcelona defender Ronald Araujo told reporters afterwards: “We played a great game, the situation was good, we defended well – it was the only goal missing. We are still playing the last game. It’s a complicated game but not impossible against Bayern Munich.”
Barcelona’s first challenge appeared on the day hours before the match, when a storm hit the city, accompanied by torrential rain, but that did not prevent 49,572 fans from arriving at the Camp Nou.
While new coach Xavi appeared to have quickly fixed many issues such as team intensity, tempo, ball control and team effort, scoring was still an issue.
Barcelona had 61% of the ball but only created a few chances, including a shot across goal from Yusuf Demir in the first half, a header from Frenkie de Jong after the break, and Araujo’s shot that went inside only to be ruled out because he was in an offside position.
Benfica had their chances as well, but Barcelona goalkeeper Marc-Andre ter Stegen held off with a header from Roman Yarimchuk, while Haris Seferovic failed to score what appeared to be the winner when he scored on a counterattack in injury time, angering his coach.
“In my 30 years as a coach, I have never seen a player miss such an opportunity,” Jorge Jesus told reporters. “Unfortunately this happened to us.”