Benfica have extraordinarily beaten Paris Saint-Germain to top-spot in Group H following Wednesday night's win over Maccabi Haifa. The Portuguese outfit hit their Israeli counterparts for six as they moved to occupy the No.1 by virtue of the number of away goals scored having gone level on points and on goals with their rivals from France.
Roger Schmidt's men entered the game knowing that they could finish at the top and potential get a favorable draw should they put Maccabi to the sword properly. Indeed, it was hardly a contest for the Eagles who had six different players getting on the scoresheet for all their goals. Goncalo Ramos opened the scoring in the 20th minute but the lead did not last after Tjaronn Chery put awat a spot-kick six minutes later. It was one-way traffic from that point onwards, with Petar Musa,Alejandro Grimaldo, and Rafa Silva all finding the back of the net before Joao Mario scored the most important sixth goal of the night to take his side right to the top.
Over in Allianz Stadium, Paris Saint-Germain could only manage a 2-1 win over Juventus. With the result, they were tied on points as well as goals with Benfica but the latter earned the edge to advance the knockout stage through the seventh tiebreaker. This means that Eagles were adjudged the winners after scoring the most away goals between them and Les Parisians.
Benfica win Group H on goals scored away from home in the section #UCL pic.twitter.com/vCukf4TRBA
— UEFA Champions League (@ChampionsLeague) November 2, 2022
As things stand, Benfica still remains the only Champions League teams to go on an unbeaten run across all competitions in 2022/23 alongside PSG. Per the predetermined permutations, the latter could potentially face either Real Madrid, Man City, Chelsea, Porto, Napoli, Tottenham or Bayern Munich in the next round of the competition.
