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Benfica beat Real 4-2 which sends both teams into Champions League playoffs, as Madrid miss out on top eight.<\/em><\/p>\n Published On 28 Jan 2026<\/span>28 Jan 2026<\/span><\/p>\n Click here to share on social media<\/p>\n share2<\/p>\n Goalkeeper Anatoliy Trubin scored an astonishing 98th-minute header as Benfica beat Real Madrid 4-2 to keep themselves in the Champions League and deny their illustrious opponents an automatic spot in the last 16.<\/p>\n In an extraordinary finale on Wednesday, the Portuguese side were \u2060heading out despite leading 3-2 with seconds of stoppage time remaining before Trubin came forward for a free \u200bkick to score the goal needed to sneak into the playoff round on goal \u200ddifference.<\/p>\n list of 4 items<\/span>end of list<\/span><\/p>\n That sparked wild celebrations from Benfica players, fans and their charismatic coach Jose Mourinho \u2013 a former manager of Real Madrid \u2013 at the Stadium of Light in Lisbon.<\/p>\n The Spaniards had hoped to finish in the top eight and go straight into the \u200dlast 16, but \u2060their 15 points from eight games were not enough, and they finished the match with nine men as Raul Asencio and Rodrygo were sent off.<\/p>\n Andreas Schjelderup scored two goals for Benfica and Vangelis Pavlidis netted from the penalty spot, while Kylian Mbappe netted twice for Real in a hugely entertaining, end-to-end contest.<\/p>\n Benfica advance at the expense of Marseille, who lost 3-0 at Club Brugge. The giant screen in the stadium in Belgium congratulated both teams for advancing to the \u200bnext stage, but that proved premature as Trubin turned the tables.<\/p>\n Both Benfica \u200cand Real needed a goal for different reasons going into the final minutes, and it is a vindication of the competition\u2019s format that a single goal could have such a dramatic effect on the table.<\/p>\n Goalkeeper Anatoliy Trubin of Benfica scores his team\u2019s fourth goal with a header [Jose Manuel Alvarez Rey\/Getty Images]<\/p>\n Benfica were denied two strong early penalty shots, \u200cand Real took the lead on 30 minutes against the run of play when Asencio\u2019s cross to the back post was headed in by Mbappe.<\/p>\n The home \u200cside drew level six minutes later when Asencio\u2019s slip in the \u2060wet conditions allowed Pavlidis to provide a perfect cross for Schjelderup to head into the net.<\/p>\n Benfica were awarded a penalty in first-half added time when Aurelien Tchouameni was adjudged to have hauled Nicolas Otamendi to the floor, and Pavlidis buried his spot-kick.<\/p>\n Schjelderup \u200cscored his second of the game from Pavlidis\u2019s perfect pass to make it 3-1, before Mbappe swept home his second, too \u2013 his 36th goal of the season in all competitions.<\/p>\n Benfica were still outside the top 24 \u200dwhen they were awarded a free kick with virtually the final play, and Fredrik Aursnes\u2019s delivery was headed in by Trubin to complete a night of high drama in Lisbon.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Benfica beat Real 4-2 which sends both teams into Champions League playoffs, as Madrid miss out on top eight. Published On 28 Jan 202628 Jan 2026 Click here to share on social media share2 Share Goalkeeper Anatoliy Trubin scored an astonishing 98th-minute header as Benfica beat Real Madrid 4-2 to keep themselves in the Champions<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":43032,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[48],"tags":[2042,1732,5504,1413,3504,1408,14966,150,7330,455],"class_list":{"0":"post-43031","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-politics","8":"tag-benfica","9":"tag-champions","10":"tag-drag","11":"tag-football","12":"tag-league","13":"tag-madrid","14":"tag-mourinhos","15":"tag-news","16":"tag-playoffs","17":"tag-real"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43031","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=43031"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43031\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/43032"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=43031"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=43031"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=43031"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Recommended Stories <\/h2>\n