Arturo Vidal’s early goal has given Bayern Munich a slender 1-0 advantage over Benfica at the halfway stage of their Champions League quarter-final.
Bayern took the lead in the opening exchanges at the Allianz Arena, but were frustrated for the remainder of the game as Benfica limited the deficit to one going into next week’s second leg in Lisbon.
It was an ominous start from Pep Guardiola’s men, and they threatened to add a second soon enough when Douglas Costa engineered space to shoot before testing Ederson with a low drive from the edge of the area.
The Brazilian was by far the busier of the two keepers, and needed to be alert to smother the ball at the feet of Robert Lewandowski after Costa had sent Philipp Lahm to the byline down the right channel.
Benfica did start to come back into the match as the first half progressed, and had a penalty shout shortly before the half-hour mark when Nicolas Gaitan’s low cross struck the arm of Lahm before Eliseu blasted a follow-up effort over the crossbar.
Benfica continued to frustrate the hosts in the second half, and almost grabbed an all-important away goal shortly before the hour mark when Jonas flicked the ball past David Alaba only to fire his effort too close to Manuel Neuer when well placed.
The hosts finally created their first real chance of the second half with less than 10 minutes remaining when Franck Ribery charged into the box from the left flank and forced Ederson into a save from a tight angle.
Bayern upped the tempo in search of a second goal during the closing stages of the match and saw one half-chance from Lewandowski nodded over the crossbar, but the Polish striker then squandered a sitter when he was played clean through on goal but overhit his pass to Lahm, who would have had an open goal.
Benfica held out against the late pressure to limit the home side to just the one goal, however, leaving them in a good position going into the second leg at the Stadium of Light next Wednesday.
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