Inside Benfica's rise from the second division to Champions League last eight

Benfica only created its women's team in 2018. Six years on, The Eagles face Lyon in the quarter-finals of the Champions League, and they have ambitions for a lot more...

Benfica are preparing to face Lyon in their first ever Champions League quarter-final on Tuesday. Image: SL Benfica

Six years ago, Benfica’s women’s team hadn’t even so much as kicked a ball in anger while Lyon, giants of European football, were in the business end of a campaign which would end in a third consecutive Champions League title.

On Tuesday, they face-off in a historic European quarter-final, for one side at least. For the French giants, this stage of the competition is par for the course, but for The Eagles it’s brand new territory and only emphasises the speed of their journey over the past half a decade.

“We are really pleased, because as a project we are still a baby,” smiles the club’s Vice President, Fernando Tavares.

Tavares has been influential in Benfica’s journey from the start when the team was announced on 12^th December 2007, with an aim to start in the second division of the Portuguese pyramid for the 2018-19 campaign.

“This is season six, but we started from zero,” he says. “We thought about purchasing the sporting rights of a first division club but we decided to start at zero.

“There was a lot of pressure. We had girls who had been in our youth schools for six years and what was happening was they’d go through our system but because we had no older categories they went to Sporting, we were losing assets.

“The Portuguese Federation also made a political approach to Benfica to sell the idea of going into the game because it would be good for the competition.”

Six years on, they are ready to host eight-time champions Lyon as they prepare for a first ever knockout game in the Champions League, having made it out of the group stage at the third time of asking.