Real Madrid will face Benfica, an old acquaintance of whites in the top continental competition, in the last 16 of the Champions League. It was the Portuguese who beat the Madridistas for the first time in a European Cup final, in the 1961-62 season. Then two giants were facing each other, because Madrid had already won five consecutive editions (between 1955 and 1960) and Benfica was the current champion, winning in 1960-61. Puskas’ early hat-trick (all goals in the first half) was not enough to beat a Benfica that recovered and ended up winning 5-3. Apart from that final, Madrid have only lost two more of the 16 they have played (in 1964 against Inter and in 1981 against Liverpool).
After that they met again in 1965, in the quarterfinals, and the coin again fell on the side of the Portuguese, who won with authority in the first leg (5-1, with a double from Eusebio) and held on in the second leg in Madrid (white victory 2-1). Since then, they have not met again in the European Cup, although Madrid had a small rematch in the 2020 Youth League, when they won the final against the Portuguese.
That 1962 final against Madrid is burned in the memory of the Portuguese, because shortly after that Bela Guttmann, their coach, was fired, who left a phrase that at the time was seen as boastfulness but that eventually became has become a curse. “Benfica will not be European champions again for the next 100 years.”
From that phrase, Benfica have lost five European Cup finals (1963, 1965, 1968, 1988 and 1990) and another three in the UEFA or Europa League (1983, 2013 and 2014). The curse extends to the Youth category, because they have also lost three Youth League finals: 2014, 2017 and 2020. That is, that 1962 final against Real Madrid is the last great joy that the Benfica fans have taken in Europe…
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