It was just after the hour mark with their team labouring a little that the Chelsea fans started to sing the name of their old manager Jose Mourinho. Standing on the touchline in a white shirt, blue trousers and brogues, the new coach of Benfica put a solitary hand up and waved.
It seems some love affairs never really die. They just hide themselves away for a while.
Mourinho can’t hurt Chelsea anymore of course. Not in the grand scheme of things. It was different during his spells at places like Manchester United, Tottenham, Inter and Real Madrid. At various points during that long period, it all grew a little bitter.
Now that his career is on the wane and he arrives in west London carrying underdog status, he can be shown the love and fondness that deep down he always craves.
Not that his team were outplayed or embarrassed here. Far from it. Benfica may have conceded a decisive own goal in the 19th minute – Richard Rios turning in a volleyed cross from Alejandro Garnacho – but they were competitive in the game and created opportunities of their own.
Indeed by the time a frantic finale arrived – with Mourinho booked for a rather mild show of touchline dissent and Chelsea substitute Joao Pedro sent off for two quick bookings – Benfica were on top and pushing hard. All the Portuguese team lacked at this late stage was a touch of penalty box composure and maybe a little good fortune.
Richard Rios’ first-half own goal was enough to give Chelsea a slender win over Benfica
Jose Mourinho received a warm reception on his latest Stamford Bridge return – but it ended in defeat
In the end they had neither and therefore lost narrowly and maybe a little unjustly. Whether that says more about Chelsea and their current inconsistencies than it does Benfica we may not know until Liverpool come here at the weekend.
But for now, this was an evening that meandered along with a modest amount of intrigue without ever really catching fire until those eminently watchable final moments.
At the start of a big few days for Mourinho – his team face another of his old clubs Porto at the weekend – he could not have looked more relaxed. In the hour and half before kick-off, there was barely a hand left unshaken. Joe Cole – once a player for him here of course – got the bear hug treatment. Owen Hargeaves was the recipient of a more formal greeting.
Not much seemed to have changed once the game started, though. It took Mourinho only two minutes to be spoken to by the fourth official for the first time. His crime was to stand outside of his technical area and with his feet right on the touchline as two players careered towards him. Mourinho was, in truth, fortunate not to be left on the seat of his undoubtedly expensive pants.
On the field, things went rather better at least for the first 20 minutes or so. Benfica were bright and purposeful and troubled Chelsea whenever they got forward in numbers. Indeed in the eighth minute they almost scored as Chelsea defender Marc Cucurella gave up possession to Dodi Lukebakio who swapped passes with Georgiy Sudakov on the right and drove a low left foot shot against the foot of Robert Sanchez’s near post.
There were other half chances too as Sudakov had a low shot saved and then Rios connected weakly with a stabbed effort after finding space on the right side.
These chances all arrived on the counter. It was Chelsea who had most of the ball at this stage and the Premier League side were close to a goal themselves, as the dangerous Pedro Neto cut in from the right and drove across goal and wide. Then Garnacho had an opportunity at the far post only to move away from the ball to volley rather than propel himself forward to head. It was a bad decision as he dragged his volley wide.
The Chelsea winger did rather better soon after that moment, however. When Neto crossed deep from the left in the 19th minute, Garnacho peeled away to connect smartly across goal for Rios to crash the ball in to his own net.
Alejandro Garnacho had a huge hand in the game’s only goal as his volley was turned in
Chelsea’s disciplinary woes continued as substitute Joao Pedro was sent off late on
Mourinho’s response to this moment of calamity was to rise from his dugout seat and encourage his players to lift their chins. They managed to do just that and remained in the game. Indeed Trevor Chalobah’s six yard line tackle on Vangelis Pavlidis was all that stood between Benfica and an equaliser, even if the young Chelsea forward Tyrique George may have done better than nudge a chance straight at Benfica goalkeeper Anatoliy Trubin seconds before the half-time whistle blew.
Just prior to that, Mourinho has been off down the touchline in a bid to quieten his team’s supporters as they barracked and threw paper cups at Enzo Fernandes as he tried to take a corner. Mourinho used to move down English touchlines rather quicker than that. Proof, perhaps, that time catches up with everybody in the end.
His team were full of running at the start of the second half, though, and this was a progressive spell for them. Twice Benfica worked good positions to see the whites of Sanchez’s eyes. Both times a flag went up, though, meaning that decent work by the Chelsea keeper ultimately went unheralded. Chelsea were not in control of the game at all as it moved towards the hour mark and were in need of a second goal. At this stage, their manager Enzo Maresca made his first change as the Brazilian teenager Estevao replaced the wholly ineffective Facundo Buonanotte.
This had been, on the whole, a pretty disjointed performance by a team that like to remind everyone of their World Champions status at every opportunity. Maybe we shouldn’t be surprised. Does anyone – including the manager – really have a clue what Chelsea’s first choice eleven is?
Maresca clearly had concerns of his own at this point. Just after Neto ran laterally to have a shot charged down and as Chelsea fans started to sing Mourinho’s name, Chelsea made two more attacking substitutions. George and Garnacho came off as Joao Pedro and Jamie Gittens came on.
More changes followed for both teams. It’s always the way these days and it certainly didn’t help the flow of the game. Chelsea were comfortable but not creative. In fact it was hard to think of a clear chance Maresca’s team made in the second half of a game they may be glad to have merely got out of the way.
Victory for Chelsea, then. But Mourinho looked dissatisfied at the end and that told much of this story.
