Other Competitions
Benfica and Ligue 1: A History
A legendary champion
38 times domestic champions, Benfica are one of the true legends of European football. While they haven't won the Champions League or its predecessor since 1962, when a team coached by Bela Guttman and led by Eusebio won successive titles. However, the team have reached another six finals in that time as well as three Europa League finals.
Incredibly, their teams featured only Portuguese players until the late 1970s, but that hasn't stopped them from being a prolific importer of talent from South America in recent seasons, with players like defender Luisão, strikers Oscar Cardozo and Jonas and others being key to the team's success. Regular participants in the Champiosn League, recent history has seen them fail to advance past the quarterfinals of that competition since 1990, a year when the team's biggest-ever home attendance was set against a French side -- some 120,000 fans saw them take on Olympique de Marseille in the 1990 Champions League semifinal.
Shared history
Some of those South American players, of course, would find their way to Ligue 1. Ángel Di Maria, the Argentine star, is back with his first European club, but his itinerant also saw him spend nearly a decade in France, becoming Paris Saint-Germain's record assist maker as well as winning a raft of trophies. Among his teammates during his spell in the French capital was David Luiz, the Brazilian defender having also been vital to the team's success. Other faces familiar to fans of Ligue 1 include Javier Saviola, who spent a season on loan at AS Monaco, as well as Renato Sanches, a title winner with LOSC Lille in 2021 and currently on loan in Lisbon from PSG, while Bernardo Silva played for Benfica's B team before moving to Monaco.
Currently, midfielder João Neves and striker Gonçalo Ramos have moved to Paris Saint-Germain in recent seasons, while André Gomes (LOSC Lille), Jota (Stade Rennais) and Diego Moreira (Racing Club de Strasbourg), have also spent time in the club's academy, underscoring the strong links between it and French football ahead of tomorrow's clash.
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