Farcical scenes have unfolded at the Estadio Nacional in Oeiras on Saturday, as a Portuguese Primera Liga match between Belenenses SAD and Benfica was forced to be abandoned following hosts Belenenses being reduced to just six men on the pitch thanks to a supposed injury suffered by goalkeeper Joao Monteiro – playing the match as a midfielder – early into the second half. Belenenses only had nine available players throughout the first half – two of whom were goalkeepers – and as Benfica raced their way into a 7-0 lead at half-time, only seven Belenenses players emerged for the second half, with Monteiro’s supposed injury forcing the referee to call off the match.
Relegation-battling Belenenses found themselves being ravaged by a COVID-19 outbreak prior to the match, with 17 of their players being forced to self-isolate. This includes all the first-teamers, meaning that for Saturday’s Lisbon Derby against league leaders Benfica, Belenenses will have to rely on their only available players – consisting of seven U-21 players and two goalkeepers, with Monteiro being forced to assume an outfield role for the match.
Unsurprisingly the hastily-built lineup was no match against Benfica’s full-strength squad, with Belenenses going down as early as the first minute thanks to an Eduardo Kau own-goal.
Haris Seferovic scored a brace before Julian Weigl pitched a goal of his own as well before Darwin Nunez went on a rampage with a hat-trick to ensure that Benfica would finish the first half of this farcical match with the very sizeable 7-0 advantage.
As the Benfica players prepared for the second half, their Belenenses counterpart did not emerge from their dressing room for quite a while, and when they did, only seven choose to take the pitch for the second stanza – which only lasted for a few seconds before Monteiro fell to the ground with an apparent injury after smashing the ball into touch.
With the rules stipulating that a match couldn’t continue if a team was reduced to six men, the referee quickly called the match off.
Almost immediately outrage was directed at the Portuguese footballing authorities for allowing the match to go ahead despite Belenenses’ COVID crisis preventing them from fielding a competitive squad.
Belenenses’ players took to social media to post a joint statement, which reads out, “Football only has heart if it is competitive. Football only has heart if it is really sporting. Football only has heart when it is an example of public health. Today, football lost its heart.”
Manchester City’s silky midfielder Bernando Silva tweeted this about the farce unfolding at the Estadio Nacional, “What is this? Am I the only one who doesn’t understand why the game hasn’t been postponed?”
And last but not least football writer Colin Millar had some choice words regarding the matter, tweeting, “Every single second of this should be agonizing and deeply embarrassing for the Portuguese football authorities.”
This wasn’t the first time that a competitive football match was given the green light despite one of the teams involved being weakened significantly by a COVID-19 outbreak.
In the tail-end of the 2019/20 Russian Premier League season, Europe-chasing FC Rostov pay relegation battlers PFC Sochi a visit on June 19th, 2020.
Like Belenenses, the Rostov squad had been ravaged by a COVID-19 outbreak, with the entire first team being placed under quarantine following six positive cases within the squad. And like the Belenenses-Benfica match, the Sochi-Rostov match was farcically given the go-ahead by the Russian footballing authorities.
But unlike their Portuguese counterparts, Rostov managed to at least field a full team complete with substitutes for their visit to the Fisht Olympic Stadium, albeit with the men in yellow-and-blue being forced to field their U-18 team.
Rostov lost the match 10-1, but the Selmashi boys were given praise for how they’ve braved through the difficult circumstances being forced on them. Two of Rostov’s 17-year olds were given credits for their heroics on that match – goalkeeper Denis Popov was named man-of-the-match after saving a penalty and pulling off 15 saves, a Russian Premier League record, while striker Roman Romanov managed to score his first senior goal in the first minute of the game.