Burnley to face Benfica
Burnley have arranged a further friendly with a fixture against Benfica during the time we are in Lisbon with the game being played at Estádio do Restelo in the Portuguese capital on Tuesday, 25th July.
Benfica are among the biggest clubs in Portugal and have a rich history with more trophies to their name than any other club in the country. They are 38 times winners of the Primeira League, and current holders, and back in the early 1960s became only the second team to win the European Cup.
Real Madrid had been the first winners and won it for the first five seasons but Benfica won it in 1960/61, the season in which Burnley competed, with a 3-2 win against Barcelona at the Wankdorf Stadium in Bern, Switzerland and retained it a year later, beating Real Madrid 5-3 at the Olympish Stadion in Amsterdam.
They’ve also been runners-up on five occasions including twice at Wembley against AC Milan a year after their two wins and against Manchester United in 1968. Their most recent final again saw them beaten by Milan, this time in 1990 when they lost 1-0 at the Praterstadion in Vienna.
The current Benfica side won the title by one point last season ahead of Porto, like Burnley losing only three times all season but playing twelve games less. They scored 82 goals, the most in the league, and conceded just 20, the least.
Managed by German Roger Schmidt, they’ve recently added to their squad with the signing of Argentinean World Cup winner Ángel Di María who played for them for three years before moving on to Real Madrid and then Manchester United for whom he debuted against Burnley at the Turf in 2014.
Our game against them will kick off at 8:30 p.m. and is open to supporters. Portugal, unlike Belgium and Spain, where we are due to play the other two confirmed games, is in the same time zone as the UK.
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