provisional one-match suspension<\/a> from UEFA on Monday, which Benfica have appealed, after he was accused of directing a racist slur at Real Madrid forward Vinicius Junior during the La Liga side’s 1-0 first-leg win in Lisbon last week.<\/p>\nThe 20-year-old Argentine winger denied the allegation, stating Vinicius “misunderstood what he thinks he heard”, with Real midfielder Aurelien Tchouameni saying Prestianni admitted to making a homophobic remark instead.<\/p>\n
Benfica assistant coach Joao Tralhao said his side’s identity did not depend on any individual player as he declined to comment on the suspension.<\/p>\n
“We are not going to talk about the topic you asked about,” Tralhao told reporters.<\/p>\n
“What we can say is that, regardless of the player on the pitch, we have an identity \u2013 a clear identity… whether player A plays or player B plays, we maintain the same profile.”<\/p>\n
Real Madrid goalkeeper Thibaut Courtois condemned both racism and homophobia earlier on Tuesday, describing any form of insult as “just as serious”.<\/p>\n
He also criticised Benfica fans who made monkey gestures during the first leg, calling their behaviour “deplorable” and “shameful”, while defending Vinicius over his goal celebration.<\/p>\n
The situation adds tension to Benfica’s preparations for the match. Midfielder Fredrik Aursnes said the squad experienced “a little bit of a different week”.<\/p>\n
“It’s like a final tomorrow. We have to win against an amazing team in a difficult stadium,” the 30-year-old Norwegian added.<\/p>\n
Benfica will also be without head coach Jose Mourinho, who is suspended after receiving a red card in the first leg.<\/p>\n
Mourinho, 63, stirred controversy after the first leg by suggesting Vinicius had provoked the crowd with his goal celebration.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Benfica winger Gianluca Prestianni was a surprise participant in training at the Bernabeu on Tuesday ahead of Wednesday’s…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":315520,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[61,60,112],"class_list":{"0":"post-315519","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-sports","8":"tag-ie","9":"tag-ireland","10":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/315519","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=315519"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/315519\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/315520"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=315519"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=315519"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=315519"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}