After being over one year without experiencing a loss in Portuguese League play, Benfica lost its second game in a row on Sunday to Belenenses, 1 to 0.

What can I say?  It was a bad game, where the players had a lousy attitude, and the end result was another loss.  The veteran Rui Costa was the only bright spot.  In the post game interview Rui Costa admitted Benfica wasn´t even able to create scoring chances.

After this loss Benfica is clearly out of the race for first place, and Porto can celebrate their Championship after every game for the next 5 months.  For this game I can´t even “blame” Camacho.  He changed the team early, and for the most part did the right substitutions.   I would only argue that Adu should be getting more minutes than Di Maria, and should enter the game first.

Belenenses was always the better team, and scored a great goal at the 71 minute mark.  From now on Benfica can only worry about holding onto second place in the standings.   This should become an important priority since next season Portugal will only qualify the first two teams to Champions League play.

Benfica´s next game is at home against Estrela Amadora on Thursday.  On Friday there will also be the drawing for UEFA Cup match-ups.