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Benfica has a historical legitimacy to claim a seat at the main table of European football. And season after season, its president Luís Filipe Vieira promised to return to those times. Jorge Jesús made a declaration of European ambition and the investment made was countercyclical to support this promise and that ambition. But Benfica did not happen in Thessaloniki and everything will have to be re-calibrated according to more modest goals. However, what happened against PAOK is not unique in the recent history of the “reds” in European competitions and this is already reflected in their European ranking.
This season, despite leaving the Champions League, Benfica can still score a lot: the “red” jumps directly to the group stage of the Europa League and will be seeded in the draw. Unlike money, winning in the Champions League or the Europa League gives the same points, and Benfica can improve their classification with a good campaign, and there is a coach on the bench who has already been in the two finalists of this competition .
Looking back over the last decade, Benfica was five years in a row in the top 10 of the highest ranked clubs, even reaching fifth place after reaching the Europa League final (the second in a row) in 2014. But the successive negative campaigns in the Champions League have taken their toll and Benfica no longer have the points of their best seasons in Europe of the last decade, those in which he reached the final of the Europa League (defeated in 2013 by Chelsea and in 2014 by Sevilla).
At the start of this season, the ‘reds’ are in 20th place in the UEFA ranking, with 70 points, which is the sum of the points they had between the 2015-16 and 2019-20 seasons. In this period, the best and the worst that Benfica has done in the Champions League: the best was in 15-16, the ‘reds’ reached the quarterfinals, where they were eliminated by Bayern Munich, the worst were the six group stage losses at 17-18.
FC Porto beat Benfica
me It is no longer now that Benfica lost the status of the best Portuguese team in the UEFA rankings. The 2016-17 season was the last time the “reds” had this status, lost in the next three seasons to FC Porto – Porto players opened a great distance for Benfica thanks to the seasons in which they passed the phase of groups of the Champions. but his current ranking is not much better, 19th, with 75 points.
Without Champions, Benfica is obliged to have a good campaign in the Europa League, all the more because the moment it reaches the “fourths” of the millionaire league (in which it added 22 points) it will no longer enter the ranking accounts (which is calculated for the five previous seasons), and because it will still have to They have been in the season for a couple more years in which only the four points that are awarded to all teams that enter the group stage counted. For now, it starts with the three points awarded to all the teams that are in the group stage of the Europa League.
It was not the first time that Jorge Jesús failed to access the Champions group stage. In 2015-16, as Sporting coach, the amateur coach fell into the play off against CSKA Moscow. The “lions” won the first leg, in Alvalade, 2-1, and were even winning 0-1 in Moscow, before losing 3-1. But in what would be his last season at Alvalade, in 2017-28, Jesús managed to lead Sporting to the group stage at the expense of Steaua Bucharest – 0-0 in Alvalade and 1-5 in Romania. And, as Benfica coach, Jesús went through two knockouts to reach the group stage of the 2011-12 Champions League, successively separating Trabzonspor and Twente.
Whatever happens with Benfica (and other Portuguese teams) in European competitions, the good news is that, having achieved sixth place in the country rankings, Portugal will once again have two direct entries in the Champions group stage. in 2021-22. , one more team in the third qualifying round.
