Key events
Half time! Benfica 0-0 Inter
It’s a very Inter scoreline. Nigel Spackman, commentating on BT, thinks “they’ve been by far the better team”. To my less expert eye it’s been pretty even, with both teams having spells on top, Benfica compiling better moves, and Inter looking dangerous on the counter. Time for a snack.
43 min Inter finally have a shot on target – but it won’t count because someone was offside as Brozovic (I think) middled one from the D after a corner.
42 min Inter can sniff a goal now. Twice in two minutes, they get crisp low crosses in, but nobody is on the end of them.
39 min Dzeko has his best moment so far, losing his minders, but Barella’s chip is just too heavy.
Meanwhile, in the other game, somebody has scored and it’s his first Champions League goal.
35 min Benfica are looking the more dangerous of the two sides, because they have a threat on both wings – Grimaldo on the left, João Mário on the right, plus Rafa darting between them. All three of them have outshone Ramos so far.
32 min For the second time in the match, Benfica present Inter’s strikers with a gift. This time it’s Martinez who has only to slip the ball square to Dzeko, and he can’t manage it either. You can see why Inter haven’t been scoring.
29 min Benfica think they deserve a penalty as Fredrik Aursnes surges into the area. Michael Oliver shakes his head and he’s quite right – some thighs and shoulders were involved, but no arms.
27 min Another foul by Antonio Silva, who may now be on one and a half yellows. Dimarco takes the free kick, a good one, but it’s shovelled away.
25 min Inter manage a spell of possession which culminates in a rasping shot from distance by Azerbi. It looked highly speculative but only just went over the bar.
23 min Michael Oliver awards his first yellow card of the night to Antonio Silva, for a silly challenge. Well, he is 19. Benfica’s average age is a fresh-faced 23, while Inter’s is a wizened 29.
19 min Benfica put together another good move, down the left, then switch it to João Mário in space on the right, but he screws his shot wide. The star of the show so far has been the left-back Grimaldo, who is playing like the young Gareth Bale.
15 min Close! Rafa Silva whips in a shot from 12 yards out, which thuds into the goalie Onana’s chest. Benfica are warming to the task.
13 min Some neat passing leads to Benfica’s first shot, a skyer from Florentino.
11 min Benfica’s turn to win a corner as Silva tries to get past Darmian. It’s headed clear by Dumfries.
9 min An attempt! From Dzeko, whose flicked header goes wide. If you’d only seen the past four minutes, you’d think Inter were the home team.
7 min Inter get up the field with a nice flowing move, then slow down when they should have kept up the tempo. Eventually they win a corner, but a subsequent cross from Brozovic sails past the far post.
4 min Benfica are going in for a lot of patient build-up. The pitch is very mottled, like a pea puree that could do with some more mashing.
2 min Benfica mess up their passing out from the back, handing the ball to Edin Dzeko, whose square pass fails to reach Lautaro Martinez.
1 min Benfica, in their usual red and white, get the ball rolling. Inter are all in yellow.
We have an Englishman on the field. The ref is Michael Oliver, who, at 38, is much the same age as some of Inter’s players.
The two sides are out there. They line up with the mascots, who have come to the party dressed as Wolverhampton Wanderers.
If, for some strange reason, you’re also interested in tonight’s other tie, we’ve got coverage here from the midfield maestro of the MBM, Rob Smyth.
Teams
Both teams and formations are much as expected. Benfica are captained by Joao Mario, the midfielder who spent a chunk of his career at Inter. Simone Inzaghi keeps faith with Edin Dzeko, who at 37 is almost as old as Cristiano Ronaldo. Dzeko is preferred to Romelu Lukaku, who is surely itching to come storming off the bench and stop this season being one to forget.
Benfica (4-2-3-1) Vlachodimos; Gilberto, Silva, Morato, Grimaldo; Florentino, Chiquinho; Mario, Rafa, Aursnes; Ramos.
Subs Soares, Gomes, Verissimo, Rodrigues, Baptista, Neves, Ndour, Neres, Schjelderup, Tengstedt, Musa, Guedes.
Manager Roger Schmidt.
Inter (3-5-2) Onana; Darmian, Acerbi, Bastoni; Dumfries, Barella, Brozovic, Mkhitaryan, Dimarco; Martinez, Dzeko.
Subs Cordaz, Handanovic, Bellanova, Gosens, D’Ambrosio, de Vrij, Zanotti, Carboni, Asllani, Gagliardini, Lukaku, Correa.
Manager Simone Inzaghi.
Preamble
Hello and welcome to tonight’s other match. Had enough of Haaland? Bored to the back teeth with Bayern? You’ve come to the right place.
This game has a few things going for it and one of them is rarity value. Benfica and Inter, rather improbably, have never met before in the Champions League. They did meet once in its predecessor, the European Cup – so here, at last, we have a rematch of the 1964-65 final.
Inter won that game 1-0, possibly because they were playing at home in the San Siro. They didn’t bump into Benfica again until 2003-04, in the UEFA Cup round of 16. They won the first leg 4-3, then remembered that they were Italian and drew the second 0-0.
So Benfica have never beaten Inter, but according to FiveThirtyEight they have a 56pc chance of doing so over these two legs. Inter are fifth in Serie A and struggling to score, with only three goals in their last six games. Benfica are cruising to their 38th Primeira Liga title and scoring for fun, with 17 goals in their last six – though they did stumble at the weekend against Porto.
Seven of those 17 goals have been slotted away by Gonçalo Ramos, who is 21 and expected to leave Benfica in the summer for Chelsea, Man United or Bayern. It feels as if this tie will hinge on how well Inter’s elderly defenders deal with him. Kick-off is at 8pm, BST and I’ll be back soon after 7 with the teams.
