Benfica has qualified for the quarter-finals of the Europa League. After the draw at home against Rangers FC last week (2-2), coach Roger Schmidt's team managed to win in Scotland: 0-1. Rafa Silva was the match winner at Ibrox. The Portuguese scored the decisive goal halfway through the second half.

Rangers had two ex-Eredivision players in attack: Fábio Silva and Cyriel Dessers. They had to take care of the Scottish danger together with Tom Lawrence and Scott Wright. Danilo was missing due to a knee injury. At Benfica, David Neres and Fredrik Aursnes kicked off; Orkun Kökçü was on the bench and came on after the break.

Rangers immediately put pressure in the opening phase, which resulted in an open game. Benfica was given some space on the counter-attack and tried, in vain, to take advantage of it through its wingers. Rangers provided the most danger.

Lawrence tried it in the short corner, where he met Anatoliy Trubin. Rangers were unable to convert their dominance into the opening goal. In the meantime, Benfica was looking for opportunities and they came. Aursnes shot into the hands of Jack Butland and Marcos Leonardo headed wide.

As the first half progressed, some sloppiness crept into Rangers' play, which gave Benfica the necessary space, especially on the flanks. as à guias However, they were unable to take advantage of this and got away well at the other end when Dessers, in an offside position, bumped into Trubin from close range.

Rangers came out of the dressing room excellently. Wright dribbled towards the sixteen and saw Dessers choose space well. The Belgian was played, cut down his man and, to his own disbelief, shot just wide. Dessers came close to scoring a few minutes later, this time he tapped wide from close range. He claimed to have been held by his shirt, but according to the referee this was not enough.

At the other end, Rafa Silva opened the scoring with a razor-sharp counter. The Portuguese escaped from his own half and finished neatly. The referee initially disallowed the goal for offside, but that was out of the question because he started from his own half: 0-1.

Rangers had to go on the attack to avoid elimination, but after the goal the Scots were barely convincing anymore. John Lundstram came close, but Trubin was determined to keep a clean sheet and made a good save on the Rangers defender's shot. Just before that, Alexander Bah missed the opportunity to put Benfica at 0-2. So his miss had no consequences.

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