In the early morning of January 22 (Vietnam time), Barcelona traveled to Lisbon after 5 consecutive wins in the Champions League. But the visitors had a terrible start when they were behind after only two minutes. Alvaro Carreras opened the scoring with a cross-angle shot that defeated goalkeeper Wojciech Szczesny.
In the 13th minute, Tomas Araujo fouled Alejandro Balde in the penalty area, giving the Catalan giants a penalty. Lewandowski converted the run to help them tie the score.
However, Barcelona's defense played too slowly, along with Szczesny's mistake, making it easy for Pavlidis to complete his hat-trick in the 30th minute. Benfica took a 3-1 lead after a thrilling first 45 minutes.
In the second half, it was Benfica's goalkeeper's turn to make mistakes. Trubin passed the ball straight to Raphinha's position despite no pressure. The ball headed the Brazilian and fell into the net in the 64th minute.
A few minutes later, Barcelona's defense " gave" the team another goal when Araujo sloppyly kicked the ball into the net, maintaining a 4-2 gap for Benfica. However, the visitors still did not give up. They continued to press and scored a goal to reduce the score on the 11m mark thanks to Lewandowski.
Garcia shined in the final minutes with an accurate header to equalize 4-4. In the 6th minute of injury time, Barcelona counterattacked quickly and Raphinha defeated Trubin in a one-on-one, sealing a 5-4 victory for the Spanish representative.
This result helped Hansi Flick and his team officially qualify for the round of 16 of the Champions League with the second place in the group, regardless of the final round. Benfica have dropped to 18th place, qualifying for the play-off round.
