Benfica, who scored the goal of Uruguayan striker Darwin Núñez, surprised and eliminated Ajax from Amsterdam (77) a quarter of an hour before the end of the match to reach the quarter-finals of the Champions League.
In the first leg where he played in Lisbon three weeks ago, the Dutch achieved a positive result with a two-goal draw, but despite Tuesday's superiority, they could not score a single goal in the Portuguese team.
True to their style, Ajax started by owning the ball (64% in the first half) and linked scoring opportunities, but did not have the goal needed to reach the halftime advantage.
Ivory Sebastian Haller (Ivorian Sébastian Haller) scored shortly after the start, with the help of another star from the Dutch team, Doosan Tadic, but the referee canceled him as an offside of the Serbian playmaker (7).
Veteran Belgian defender Jan Vertonghen prevented the locals from opening the Luminoso in 25 minutes, rejected the dangerous header of the Brazilian Antony and Greek goalkeeper Odysses Vlachodimos (Odysseas Vlachodimos) rejected the hard shot of the Dutch Ryan Gravenberg (36), allowing Benfica to reach half time.With a tie despite Ajax's superiority.
After the break, the pressure allowed Ajax to recover the ball in Benfica's defensive zone and get a chance, but his deployed shot came out narrow (49), although he did not have the precision of the shot, such as the twelfth ball intercepted by Tadic near the Benfica area.
However, over time, Benfica increased, and Vertonghen gave the first warning after a corner kick (57) with an overly crossed header.
Antony, who was very active throughout the game, was close to Ajax's scoring at the time of the match, but his head in the center of the Daily Bling (Daley Bling) crossed the crossbar (62).
After so much forgiveness, Ajax ended up paying for it. The lateral foul of Edson Álvarez, Mexico, was hung by the Spanish Alex Grimaldo in the center of the area, and Darwin Nunez rose there to head the net (77).
As the fourth goal of the Uruguayan striker in the Champions League this season, he was visibly injured shortly after scoring his retirement from the field.
According to the results, Ajax had much less clarity of the idea over the past few meters, pushed to find extra time until the end, but could not score a goal for Vlachodimos.
burr/mcd