The Group D meeting ended with the hosts winning with a score of 3:1. Mikel Marino opened the scoring in the 6th minute. Five minutes later, Mikel Oyarzabal doubled the Spanish club’s lead. In the 21st minute, Ander Barrenechea scored Sociedad’s third goal. In the 49th minute, Rafael Silva pulled one back for the visitors.
We didn’t have to wait long to be active in the match. In the sixth minute of the match, the hosts opened the scoring. First, Kubo cut off three players of the Portuguese team with his pass, and Munoz’s unsuccessful shot turned into an assist. Merino headed the ball into the goal.
The second goal came five minutes later. The visitors took one throw-in, but immediately faced heavy pressure from Imanol Alguacil’s side. Luis must have made a bad backward pass. Otamendi, who was running towards the ball, outpaced Sociedad captain Oyarzabal, went one-on-one and doubled his team’s lead.
The owners did not calm down on this. Mikel Merino and Mikel Oyarzabal scored two more in the 15th and 19th minutes, but both goals were disallowed for handball and offside. A few minutes later, the Spanish club still managed to score the third goal. Barrenechea dealt with Neves in the visitors’ penalty area and fired into the far corner. The dangerous moments in front of the Portuguese goal did not stop there. Otamendi fouled the home captain and the referee pointed to the penalty spot. But Bryce Mendes hit the post.
After the onslaught of the first half, Sociedad relaxed. Taking advantage of the opportunity, Benfica scored an early goal. Otamendi, who scored negatively in the first half, made an assist for Rafael Silva, and the Portuguese sent the ball into the goal with a short movement.
After conceding an early goal, the hosts woke up, took the game away from their goal and regained control of the match. In the 77th minute, Arsen Zakharyan entered the field in place of Barrenechea and took up a position on the left flank. The Russians showed no effective action. I took part in the pressing and took a few corners, but it didn’t result in any scoring opportunities. At the end of the match, Real Sociedad had 17 shots (7 on target) compared to 11 (4 on target) for Benfica.
Sociedad, after winning, scored 10 points in 4 matches and secured access to the playoffs of the tournament. Benfica suffers its 4th defeat and finishes in group D.
Yahya Hasanov, Athletistic
Source: Sport
I’m Scott Moore, a professional writer and journalist based in the US. I’ve been writing for various publications for over 8 years now, and have been working as an author at athletistic for the past five years. My work has been featured by some of the leading sports websites and magazines across Europe.
