\n<\/p>\n
Vinicius Junior scored a brilliant winner for Real Madrid against Benfica in their Champions League play-off first leg, which was <\/b>halted for 10 minutes for alleged racist abuse.<\/b><\/p>\n
The Brazil forward put the visitors ahead in the 50th minute with a magnificent curling strike past Anatoliy Trubin at the Estadio da Luz.<\/p>\n
Vinicius was then booked for an excessive celebration and, following a heated exchange with Benfica’s Gianluca Prestianni, he ran over to referee Francois Letexier as he gestured in the direction of the Argentina winger.<\/p>\n
Vinicius then walked off the pitch and was followed by his team-mates before play restarted 10 minutes later.<\/p>\n
Benfica manager Jose Mourinho was shown two yellow cards in the 85th minute and will be missing from the sideline in next Wednesday’s return leg at the Santiago Bernabeu.<\/p>\n
There were 12 minutes of added time as a result of play being stopped and during that period an object was thrown from the crowd that struck Vinicius on the arm as he prepared to take a corner.<\/p>\n
Before Real took the lead, Vinicius shot narrowly wide following Trent Alexander-Arnold’s defence-splitting pass to Federico Valverde. <\/p>\n
Real goalkeeper Thibaut Courtois was then required to keep out Fredrik Aursnes’ stinging drive as both sides chased an opener.<\/p>\n
Kylian Mbappe was inches away from meeting a ball from Alexander-Arnold – who played the full match – into the penalty area as Real pressed before half-time.<\/p>\n
Mbappe blazed over after being teed up by Vinicius’ back heel and was then denied by Trubin, who was again called upon to deny Arda Guler as Benfica hung on until the break.<\/p>\n
Benfica rarely threatened Courtois’ goal after Vinicius’ majestic strike as Real put the seal on a masterful away performance that was overshadowed by the allegations of racism that followed the winning goal.<\/p>\n
The sides were playing in Lisbon just 19 days after the astonishing conclusion to their game at the end of the league phase, when goalkeeper Trubin scored an 89th-minute header to clinch the final play-off spot for Benfica on goal difference.<\/p>\n
Benfica will seek to overturn the deficit when the return leg takes place in Madrid on Wednesday, 25 February (20:00 GMT).<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
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Vinicius Junior scored a brilliant winner for Real Madrid against Benfica in their Champions League play-off first leg, which was halted for 10 minutes for alleged racist abuse. The Brazil forward put the visitors ahead in the 50th minute with a magnificent curling strike past Anatoliy Trubin at the Estadio da Luz. Vinicius was then<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":8899,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8898","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-football"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8898","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=8898"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8898\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/8899"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8898"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8898"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8898"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}