Time to wrap this one up. Congratulations to the old lags of Inter, commiserations to the bright young things from Benfica, and thanks to you for reading.
Both tonight’s Champions League games have been lost by the team that had more of the ball. Bayern had 55 per cent of the possession at the Etihad; Benfica had 56 per cent here. They also had more shots than Inter (12-9) and, allegedly, more clear-cut chances (4-3). The scoreline is harsh on them, but it is a fair reflection of their ruthlessness: they didn’t have any.
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Quiz question: what’s next in this sequence? 7-0, 6-0, 4-1, 4-1…
The answer is: 3-0. City are scoring slightly fewer goals with every game, and it’s still more than enough.
A word from Henrik Mkhitaryan, dusting off his English. “It has been one of our best games this season,” he says. “We were dominating all over the pitch, we were doubling up, everywhere helping each other, and we’ve got paid off for it.”
Why is it, Matt Smith asks him, that Inter are better in the cups? “I cannot explain,” Mkhi replies with a smile. “We’re going step by step forwards. Today we’ve done a great job.”
In other news, Sarina Wiegman has finally lost a match as England coach. The game, almost inevitably, was against Australia. Details here from Daniel Gallan.
Benfica were robbed by the penalty, but otherwise they only had themselves to blame. They were all nice moves and no end product; they had plenty of set pieces and did nothing with them. They have still to beat Inter after 59 years of trying (albeit only four games). And they have now lost their second home game in a row, bringing a purple patch to an abrupt end.
FULL TIME! Benfica 0-2 Inter
A masterclass from Inter. Without playing very well, they’ve taken charge of this tie. They all hold hands and run to their fans, knowing they have more than one foot in the semi-final.
Key event
94 min Ramos gets one last chance, from a fine through ball, and hits it straight at Onana!
93 min Sure enough, no alarms yet.
90 min There will be four more minutes. Not that Inter look remotely like blowing this lead.
86 min Ramos has a shot! He’s been the invisible man but now he has a go from the D – well struck, turned round the post by Onana.
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86 min The other game sees that second goal and says “I raise you a third”. More here from Rob Smyth.
85 min Chance! Benfica bounce back as Neres plays a lovely chip through to Grimaldo, who connects with the half-volley but can’t quite middle it.
GOAL! Benfica 0-2 Inter (Lukaku pen 82)
Lukaku buries it in the corner, and although Vlachodimos goes the right way, there’s too much power on the shot. Lukaku just has time to bring out his trademark celebration before he gets engulfed by his team-mates. And Inter are in total control.
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Lukaku has the ball under his arm.
Penalty to Inter!
João Mário did handle the ball, but it came off his head first, so it’s not very clear and obvious to me.
79 min Oliver is going to the monitor … and the video’s not loading!
77 min Close! Bastoni recreates the cross that brought the goal, and it very nearly brings another! Again Benfica fail to police the far post, where Dumfries heads the ball down, then shoots – bringing a save and a block. But there’s a VAR check for handball…
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74 min Barella fancies a second goal. As Inter go on the counter, he shoots from 25 yards when he should really be passing the parcel to Lukaku.
72 min The other match, not content with being more glamorous than this one, also has a second goal. Details here.
69 min Another old friend, Matteo Darmian, somehow turns up in the inside-left channel. His pull-back brings a fine shot from Barella, with plenty of swazz on it. Dumfries then howls in agony as someone, Rafa I suspect, steps on his shin. The free kick leads to a corner that leads to nothing in particular.
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66 min Chance! It’s our old friend Henrik Mkhitaryan, making up for a quiet game by bombing forward and picking up Correa’s through ball. The shot is sharp but straight at Odysseas Vlachodimos.
65 min A sub for Benfica too. Schmidt takes Florentino off and sends on the more attacking Neres.
Sub! Enter Lukaku
Yes, it’s goodnight Dzeko, and he takes his partner in crime, Lautaro Martinez, with him. They give way to Lukaku and Correa, and there’s a third sub – the left wing-back, Dimarco, is replaced by Gosens, possibly in a bid to escape a suspension.
61 min The hour mark passes with Inter managing to get up the pitch, but there’s another poor touch from Dzeko. They must be tempted to bring on Lukaku.
58 min More pressure from Benfica. Inter have parked the bus now: 5-3-2, with the three only just in front of the five.
56 min Benfica nearly hit back! Some neat little passes in the box lead to one chance, then another, both blocked… Is that a foul in there? The VAR doesn’t seem to be checking, which is puzzling.
54 min That was Inter’s first attempt on target.
GOAL! Benfica 0-1 Inter (Barella 51)
It’s not 0-0 any more! Bastoni curls in a tasty cross, too high for Dzeko but just right for Barella at the back post. His header is straight from the coaching manual, back across and down, and it nestles in the far corner.
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48 min Chiquinho dances through midfield but as usual Inter’s veterans are able to clear. One reason why this game is 0-0 is the fact that both sides get back in numbers – Inter by sheer force of habit, Benfica because they’re young and quick and perhaps a little insecure.
46 min The second half is under way. Benfica get in Inter’s faces and into their box, though nothing comes of it bar some sustained pressure. It looks as if Roger Schmidt has told them that this game is there for the taking.
This BT channel has just shown the goal from the other one. Rodri, bloody hell – a classic curling screamer, with his weaker foot. More on that game here from Rob Smyth.
In a development that is hard to believe, I have received an email. “I realize,” says Kári Tulinius, “that most everyone expects this year’s champion to come from the other side of the draw, but both these teams must realize that they have a great opportunity to get to the final, especially with Napoli seemingly losing their intensity lately. I wonder if that opportunity is preying on their minds, because they seem like they’re both playing within themselves.” That rings true.
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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.
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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 Acerbi. It looked highly speculative but only just went over the bar.
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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.
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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.
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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.
Key event
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.
