Benfica v Rangers: Visitors face ‘bad situation’ with missing attackers for Europa League tie

Philippe Clement admits he faces a selection dilemma away to Benfica in the Europa League with four wingers missing from his Rangers squad.

“That is a bad situation,” he said. “We are missing a lot of offensive quality.

“We need to find a solution. We have a decision to either change the system or play players in a position they are not used to.”

Scottish Premiership leaders Rangers lost at home to Motherwell on Saturday, with Benfica suffering an even worse result as they were thrashed 5-0 away to Porto and relinquished their domestic lead to Sporting Lisbon.

Clement expects “a reaction” from “a really good Benfica team” despite Roger Schmidt’s side having also finished a distant third behind Real Sociedad and Inter Milan in their Champions League group before edging out Toulouse in the play-off to reach the last 16.

“We are playing a good team with a lot of quality,” the Belgian said. “It’s a huge challenge. This is exciting for us.

“We are playing a team with double our budget, but we are really ambitious. We need to over-perform and get a little bit of luck. We have to be very efficient.”

Clement is hoping for a similar performance to Rangers’ win away to Real Betis that secured top place in their qualifying group and thinks the pitch in Lisbon will suit his side’s style of play as it is similar to Ibrox.

“We come to win,” he promised. “I never play to get a draw.

“I don’t believe in parking the bus and only defending, I have never done that. Even against PSG and in Madrid I have attacked.”

Counterpart Schmidt has been criticised by fans for not issuing a public apology for Sunday’s hammering but reckons the best way to make amends is by putting in a “complete performance” against Rangers.

The German is delighted to have the chance to respond so quickly and said: “We want to show a good reaction after Sunday.

“After the match, we were all a little bit shocked about the result and of course we were also not happy with the performance.”

Team news

Former Bayern Munich, Paris St-Germain and Spain left-back Juan Bernat, who has not played since October, was the only absentee from Benfica’s training on Wednesday.

Clement, meanwhile, reports that McCausland “did individual work” after being forced off early with a leg injury against Motherwell and will be assessed on the morning before the game.

Fellow wingers Scott Wright, Rabbi Matondo and Abdallah Sima are definitely missing through injury along with Oscar Cortes, who is not part of the European squad.

Also not available are central midfielders Todd Cantwel and Kieran Dowell, plus striker Danilo.

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What do we know about Benfica?

Schmidt’s reigning Portuguese champions come into the tie having lost back-to-back matches for the first time this season.

Benfica exited the Taca de Portugal, their national cup competition, at the hands of city rivals Sporting 2-1 last Thursday before being humbled by Porto in Sunday’s ‘O Classico’.

It was only their second Primeira Liga defeat of the season, but it allowed Sporting to take over at the top.

Former Manchester City defender Nicolas Otamendi and midfielder Angel di Maria are both recent World Cup winners with Argentina, while forward Rafa Silva’s 17 goals this season are a reminder that he scored in Rangers’ last visit to Estadio da Luz.

At the other end of their careers are Otamendi’s centre-back partner, Antonio Silva, who is only 20 but has already played for Portugal seven times and reportedly attracting Premier League interest, 19-year-old midfielder Joao Neves, who has also broken into the national side, and Turkish midfielder Orkun Kokcu, who arrived for a club record £25m from Feyenoord in pre-season.

Read match commentator Liam McLeod’s Benfica lowdown in full here.

What they said

Benfica head coach Roger Schmidt: “The third different competition in seven days we have to play and we know in the last-16 of this competition you always have tough opponents and I think Glasgow Rangers is a very good team.

“They are first in the Scottish League and they are playing very straight, very direct football with a lot of transition, lot of deep runs, a lot of crosses. We need a good result to go to Glasgow.”

Rangers forward Fabio Silva: “I had two good years at Benfica, I learned a lot and only have good things to say about the club.

“Benfica need to show a reaction after their last two games, so we know to expect a difficult game.”

Match stats

• This is the third European meeting between Benfica and Rangers – the first two were both draws in the 2020-21 Europa League group stage (3-3 in Portugal, 2-2 in Scotland).
• Rangers have only lost one of their last seven away European trips to Portugal, winning twice, although it was their most recent game there in April 2022, losing 1-0 to Sporting Braga.
• Benfica have never lost a home match in the Europa League (P27 W21 D6), the most any side has played at home without losing in the competition. They have only failed to score once on home soil, in a 0-0 draw with Galatasaray in February 2019.
• This is Rangers’ first knockout match in major European competition since the 2022 Europa League final, which they lost on penalties to Eintracht Frankfurt after a 1-1 draw. They lost three of their four away knockout matches that season, winning the other 4-2 at Borussia Dortmund in the play-off round.
• Angel Di Maria has been involved in nine goals in seven home Europa League appearances for Benfica (4 goals, 5 assists), netting a brace against Toulouse in this season’s play-off round. In doing so, he became the oldest Benfica player to score a brace in a major European match (36 years, 1 day old).