{"id":846219,"date":"2026-08-07T01:16:09","date_gmt":"2026-08-07T01:16:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/846219\/"},"modified":"2026-08-07T01:16:09","modified_gmt":"2026-08-07T01:16:09","slug":"benfica-6-1-hearts-vranckens-side-suffer-first-leg-mauling-in-lisbon","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/846219\/","title":{"rendered":"Benfica 6-1 Hearts: Vrancken’s side suffer first-leg mauling in Lisbon"},"content":{"rendered":"

Hearts were outclassed by Portuguese giants Benfica as the Tynecastle side fell to their joint-heaviest European defeat in the first leg of their Europa League third qualifying round tie.<\/p>\n

Three of Benfica’s six goals in Lisbon were gift-wrapped by Wouter Vrancken’s men, who conceded after only two minutes on a night that threatens to leave psychological scars.<\/p>\n

No one was expecting an upset, but the ease with which Benfica cut Hearts apart at times in the first half left even the neutral wincing at such a mismatch.<\/p>\n

Veteran Rafa Silva got the scoring started, latching on to Leandro Barreiro’s cutback to tap in the opener and show Hearts the quality they were up against.<\/p>\n

The second was similar to some of the goals Hearts conceded away to Sturm Graz<\/a> in their Champions League qualifying humbling two weeks ago. <\/p>\n

A corner was whipped in and, all too easily, captain Tomas Araujo was allowed to beat Blair Spittal in the air and nod home.<\/p>\n

Hearts rallied a little, but the exertions of chasing the game told quickly as Laurent Mendy pulled down GIanluca Prestianni to concede the cheapest of penalties.<\/p>\n

Vangelis Pavlidis drilled the spot-kick down the middle and Hearts were 3-0 behind at half-time.<\/p>\n

There were little moments for Hearts, though. Mendy hit the bar with a header after brilliant work from Calvin Miller on the right. Spittal fizzed a free-kick just wide, and there would even be a goal to remember for Tom Renaud.<\/p>\n

But first, Hearts gave the ball away on the edge of the box and Prestianni punished them, curling in the fourth.<\/p>\n

Job done for Benfica, passage effectively secured, and foot taken off the gas. That allowed Hearts to play, and play they did.<\/p>\n

In a lovely Hearts move, the ball was slipped to Renaud and he arrowed into the bottom corner to send the away fans into the night with something to remember.<\/p>\n

As the game was winding to a close, Benfica fired off another few reminders of the gulf between the sides, stealing possession to allow former Aston Villa striker Jhon Duran to lash home a fifth.<\/p>\n

And with the last kick Norwegian midfielder Andreas Schjelderup scored from the spot, after Oisin McEntee handled in the box, to equal the margin of Hearts’ 5-0 European defeat to Tottenham 15 years ago.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Hearts were outclassed by Portuguese giants Benfica as the Tynecastle side fell to their joint-heaviest European defeat in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":404603,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[563],"tags":[64,63,596,85],"class_list":["post-846219","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-football","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-football","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/846219","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=846219"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/846219\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/404603"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=846219"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=846219"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=846219"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}