Friday August 14th 2026
Written by Midlothian View Reporter, Adam Bowen
Back-to-Back European Cup winners Benfica came to Tynecastle last night. They began the game with a 5-goal lead following their 6-1 victory last week. It was a game in which Hearts fans knew their Europa League journey was over but a good result against an incredible Portuguese team would make up for that.
Benfica started strong and throughout the first half they challenged Hearts keeper Reus, who pulled out some incredible saves.
When the clock hit 37 minutes played, Hearts fans stood up and applauded one of their own, Bryan Weir, who sadly passed away last week.
The first half ended goalless.
Hearts started the second half very strong and in the 54th minute McPake received the ball down the left-hand side beating his man brilliantly before drilling a ball across goal for Miller to tap in.
Tynecastle erupted however, a VAR offside decision against McPake caught everyone in the ground off guard, it remained all square.
Hearts fans made their thoughts known singing ‘are you Celtic in disguise’ referring to that controversial handball decision last season at Fir Park that cost Hearts the title.
On the topic of controversy, Prestianni the player who received a 6-game ban by UEFA for homophobic conduct when he covered his mouth in an altercation with Vinicius Jr in the Champions League last season came on to the pitch in the 64th minute, providing calm and quality on the ball. Benfica began to perform like they did in the first half again.
However, it was again Hearts who broke the deadlock after great play from Altena and substitute Wilson, resulted in the ball breaking to Magnusson on the edge of the box who rifled it into the bottom right corner. Once again Tynecastle erupted.
The celebrations were short lived once again. It wasn’t VAR this time, instead it was Benfica’s play down the left wing before playing the pass to the edge of the box where Lukebakio’s one touch finish found the bottom right corner just a minute after Hearts found the net themselves.
Hearts finished the game very strong defending as if their lives depended on it, throwing their bodies at every Benfica shot.
The game ended 1-1, and remarkably Hearts fans may be disappointed they didn’t win the game.
Hearts boss Vrancken replied ‘yeah of course’ when asked if he was disappointed to not have won the game.
He said that ‘we have to take confidence of the performance today, also the way we did it, it’s not like we were lucky today’ saying that the performance was Hearts ‘trying to create something, trying to bring positive football.’
He further mentioned that they won’t stop now, ‘we will not back down, we will keep pushing’ they will ‘try to do the same things with the same mentality and the same spirits.’
He also confirmed that Zander Clark has a minor injury which is why he was left out the squad last night, but will hopefully begin training next week.
Marco Silva, the Benfica Head Coach, believed his side should have scored in the first half with the chances they had. But he also mentioned possession saying ‘I believe, even if we had more possession, that was not aggressive possession.’
When asked about if he was impressed by Hearts tonight he said, ‘we respect all the opposition sides’ and ‘respecting Hearts like we did, I think the best way to show that is the we play the first leg.’
Hearts now drop into the playoff of the UEFA Conference League Qualifiers with a tie against Rapid Vienna, the home fixture being the 20th August with the away tie the week after, the 26th.
Benfica will go on to play AGF of Denmark in the play-off round of the UEFA Europa League Qualifiers.
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