1995–96 S.L. Benfica season

Benfica

1995–96 season
President	Manuel Damásio
Head coach	Artur Jorge (until 9 September 1995) Mário Wilson
Stadium	Estádio da Luz
Primeira Divisão	2nd
Taça de Portugal	Winners
UEFA Cup	Third round
Top goalscorer	League: João Pinto (18) All: João Pinto (23)
Highest home attendance	50,000 v Porto (23 March 1996)
Lowest home attendance	4,000 v Chaves (9 March 1996)
Biggest win	Benfica 4–0 União de Leiria (29 December 1995) Benfica 5–1 Marítimo (12 May 1996)
Biggest defeat	Porto 3–0 Benfica (5 November 1995) Bayern Munich 4–1 Benfica (21 November 1995)
Home colours
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The 1995–96 season was Sport Lisboa e Benfica's 92nd season in existence and the club's 62nd consecutive season in the top flight of Portuguese football, covering the period from 1 July 1995 to 30 June 1996. It involved Benfica competing in the Primeira Divisão and the Taça de Portugal. Benfica qualified for the UEFA Cup by coming third in previous League.

After failing to renew the title in the past season, the club brought in several players during the transfer market, with Ricardo Gomes, Valdo, Calado and Marcelo assuming regular starter roles. However, the club lost all of his more historic players as the case of Neno, Vítor Paneira, Isaías and César Brito. With the animosity around Artur Jorge increasing, poor results in September caused his departure. Despite an irregular season in the league, various winning streaks helped the team reach their second-place finish by 23 March, after a home win against Porto. In the Portuguese Cup, a strong performance from Marcelo throughout the competition, who finish as the tournament top scorer, guided the team to the final, where João Pinto delivered the trophy after scoring a double.^[1]

The second season of Artur Jorge started with much more distrust over his abilities. From the large number of signings in the year before, only a handful prove noteworthy, and Tavares and Nelo even showed a complete inability to play for a big club.^[2] Despite that, more exits followed, with a 28-year-old Vítor Paneira, and the club league topscorer in the year before; Isaías, causing the most anger.^[3][4] Benfica signed mostly in Portugal, as with the league top goalscorer, Hassan, but also searched in Europe, bringing Valdo and Ricardo Gomes, back from France.

The league start was not ideal, as the team dropped four points in three match-days, leading to Artur Jorge being sacked after the build up of fan pressure.^[1] The club then selected Mário Wilson as his replacement. Benfica slowly started collecting wins over the following weeks, but after the defeat against FC Porto in the Clássico of 5 November, the distance to the league leader increased to eight points.^[5] In Europe, the ended their campaign, after being knock out by Bayern Munich, with Klinsmann scoring six goals, in what the press dubbed 'Cataklinsmann'.^[6][1]

In November, with Porto putting on a strong campaign, the club set eyes on closing the distance on the second place, occupied by Sporting.^[5] At the end of January, Benfica reach the second place for the first time, after João Pinto led the club past Vitória Guimarães.^[1] In the following month, a strong performance by Marcelo, allowed the club to progress through the Portuguese Cup semi-finals after beating Vitória de Guimarães.^[7] However, February did not go as well in the league race, with the club spending two weeks on the fourth place.^[8]

In March, Benfica received and beat Porto, with João Pinto scoring the winning goal, as he have done in Guimarães.^[1] With this win, the club re-assumed the second place, which would be its final league position, finishing the season six points ahead of Sporting, but an eleven behind Porto, which had the title wrapped up nearly a month before.^[9] In April, with only the Portuguese Cup to compete for. Marcelo continued his goalscoring record on the national cup, scoring a double in overtime for the semi-final against Leiria.^[7] On the 18 May, in the 1996 Taça de Portugal final, João Pinto scored two against Sporting in a 3–1 win, with the club winning its twenty-third Taça de Portugal. The celebrations were nonetheless cancelled due to the death of a Sporting supporter, after being accidentally hit by a lost flare.^[1]

  Win   Draw   Loss   Postponed

Competition	First match	Last match	Record
			G	W	D	L	GF	GA	GD	Win %	Source
Primeira Divisão	26 August 1995	12 May 1996	34	22	7	5	57	27	+30	064.71	[10]
Taça de Portugal	1 December 1995	18 May 1996	6	5	1	0	12	2	+10	083.33	[10]
UEFA Cup	12 September 1995	5 December 1995	6	3	1	2	10	11	−1	050.00	[10]
Total			46	30	9	7	79	40	+39	065.22

Pos	Team v t e	Pld	W	D	L	GF	GA	GD	Pts	Qualification or relegation
1	Porto (C)	34	26	6	2	84	20	+64	84	Qualification to Champions League group stage
2	Benfica	34	22	7	5	56	25	+31	73	Qualification to Cup Winners' Cup first round[a]
3	Sporting CP	34	19	10	5	69	27	+42	67	Qualification to UEFA Cup first round
4	Boavista	34	19	8	7	59	28	+31	65
5	Vitória de Guimarães	34	19	5	10	55	39	+16	62

The squad for the season consisted of the players listed in the tables below, as well as staff member Artur Jorge (manager), Zoran Filipovic (assistant manager) and Mário Wilson (manager).^[10][16]

Note 1: Note: Flags indicate national team as defined under FIFA eligibility rules. Players may hold more than one non-FIFA nationality.

Note 2: Players with squad numbers marked ‡ joined the club during the 1995–96 season via transfer, with more details in the following section.

No.	Pos	Nat	Player	Total		Primeira Divisão		Taça de Portugal		UEFA Cup
				Apps	Goals	Apps	Goals	Apps	Goals	Apps	Goals
1	GK	BEL	Michel Preud'homme	45	-37	33	-24	6	-2	6	-11
2	DF	BRA	Paulo Pereira	11	0	7	0	0	0	4	0
3‡	DF	BRA	Ricardo Gomes	37	4	29	4	5	0	3	0
4	DF	POR	Hélder Cristóvão	43	2	31	2	6	0	6	0
5‡	DF	BRA	Paredão	12	1	8	1	2	0	2	0
6	MF	POR	Paulo Bento	40	3	29	2	6	0	5	1
7‡	MF	POR	José Calado	22	0	14	0	4	0	4	0
8	MF	POR	João Vieira Pinto	42	23	31	18	6	4	5	1
9‡	FW	MAR	Hassan Nader	14	8	10	6	1	0	3	2
10‡	MF	BRA	Valdo Filho	39	6	30	4	6	0	3	2
11‡	MF	ROU	Basarab Panduru	19	4	15	3	1	0	3	1
13	DF	POR	Dimas Teixeira	41	3	30	2	6	0	5	1
14‡	DF	POR	Marinho	24	1	18	1	3	0	3	0
15	FW	BRA	Aílton Delfino	5	0	4	0	0	0	1	0
16‡	DF	BRA	King	1	0	0	0	0	0	1	0
17	DF	POR	Pedro Henriques	19	0	16	0	2	0	1	0
18	MF	POR	Edgar Pacheco	31	2	21	2	4	0	6	0
19	MF	POR	Bruno Caires	23	0	16	0	4	0	3	0
20‡	MF	BUL	Ilian Iliev	24	1	19	1	5	0	0	0
21‡	FW	BRA	Luiz Gustavo	14	0	14	0	0	0	0	0
25‡	FW	BRA	Marcelo	39	13	27	7	6	5	6	1
22	MF	POR	Daniel Kenedy	30	2	22	1	3	0	5	1
23‡	MF	ANG	Paulão	20	3	18	3	2	0	0	0
24‡	GK	POR	Fernando Brassard	2	-4	2	-4	0	0	0	0
26	DF	POR	Nélson Veríssimo	3	0	3	0	0	0	0	0
27	MF	POR	Maniche	2	0	0	0	0	0	2	0
30‡	FW	ARG	Mauro Airez	28	3	24	0	4	3	0	0

^[17]

Entry date	Position	Player	From club
July 1995	AM	Valdo Filho	Paris SG
July 1995	CB	Ricardo Gomes	Paris SG
July 1995	CM	José Calado	Estrela da Amadora
July 1995	ST	Marcelo	Tirsense
July 1995	RB	Marinho	Sporting
July 1995	ST	Hassan	Farense
July 1995	CM	Ilian Iliev	Levski Sofia
July 1995	AM	Basarab Panduru	Steaua București
July 1995	FW	Mauro Airez	Belenenses
July 1995	RW	Paulão	Vitória Setúbal
July 1995	GK	Fernando Brassard	Gil Vicente
July 1995	CB	Paredão	Tirsense
July 1995	FW	Luiz Gustavo	Belenenses
July 1995	ST	Aílton Delfino	São Paulo

Entry date	Position	Player	From club	Return date
July 1995	CB	King	Farense	30 June 1996

Exit date	Position	Player	To club
July 1995	GK	Neno	Vitória Guimarães
July 1995	LB	António Veloso	Retired
July 1995	CB	William	Bastia
July 1995	FB	Abel Xavier	Bari
July 1995	CB	Paulo Madeira	Belenenses
July 1995	CB	Paulão	Vasco da Gama
July 1995	CB	Carlos Mozer	Kashima Antlers
July 1995	CM	José Tavares	Boavista
July 1995	RW	Amaral	Felgueiras
July 1995	RW	Vítor Paneira	Vitória Guimarães
July 1995	CM	Nelo	Boavista
July 1995	AM	Mario Stanić	Club Brugge
July 1995	CM	Rui Esteves	Belenenses
July 1995	ST	Edílson	Palmeiras
July 1995	ST	Claudio Caniggia	Boca Juniors
July 1995	FW	Isaías	Coventry City
July 1995	ST	César Brito	Belenenses
December 95	ST	Aílton Delfino	São Paulo

Exit date	Position	Player	To club	Return date
July 1995	ST	Akwá	Alverca	30 June 1997
December 95	AM	Basarab Panduru	Neuchâtel Xamax	30 June 1996

Bibliography

• Tovar, Rui Miguel (2012). Almanaque do Benfica [Benfica Almanac]. Portugal: Lua de Papel. ISBN 978-989-23-2087-8.