Sport Lisboa e Benfica cruise past Sporting Clube with ten men, landing eight points behind Porto
Benfica beat Sporting CP 2-0 in the Lisbon derby at Estadio Jose Alvalade on Monday evening. Despite the hosts being restricted to ten men at half time, they cruised to victory without any troubles. http://www.senore.com/Football-soccer/Eduardo-Salvio-c12079 and Nicolas Gaitan scored for the visitors,
who close the gap on leaders Porto by eight points.
Paulo http://www.senore.com/Football-soccer/Victoria-c40883
Guimaraes 3-0 last weekend. Midfielder http://www.senore.com/Football-soccer/Carlos-Martins-c8485 in a 4-4-2 formation for the visitors.
The first half started in brisk fashion as both sides looked to make early inroads. The game was stopped of trouble in the stands after just two minutes of play. Soon after resumption, the visitors came extremely close to scoring when Salvio and Gaitan made
an overlapping run and the latter bent a shot just a whisker away from goal. The high intensity of the derby was causing nerves for both sides, as they failed to settle in the opening ten minutes. Benfica managed to open the scoring in the 15th
minute when Gaitan took advantage of the poor clearance from Rui Patricio, and fed the ball inside the box to Salvio, who finished it calmly past the keeper to make it 1-0. Sporting twice came close to scoring on the counter attack from Benfica corners but
both times Yannick Djalo failed to test the visiting goalkeeper. Both teams made ragged challenges during the first half that saw seven yellow cards and a red card to Benfica centre back http://www.senore.com/Football-soccer/Sidnei-c33472, just on the stroke of the break.
After a slow start to the second half, Sporting came close to equalizing seven minutes into the half. Matias Fernandez made a blistering run into the box and his powerful shot was brilliantly saved by Roberto to deny the hosts. The visitors made their sjots
count when they doubled their lead, just after the hour mark. Maximiliano Pereira crossed a beautiful delivery into the box, which was brilliantly volleyed home by Gaitan to make it 2-0 for the hosts. Sporting made all their substitutions just after the goal
but they couldn’t test the stubborn Benfica defence. Sporting slumped to their fifth defeat of the season as they now remain 15 points adrift from second placed Benfica.
Sporting will play their next game against http://www.senore.com/Football-soccer/CD-Nacional-c38752 on 27th February, while Benfica will play CS Maritimo the same day.
Tags: