Benfica have put together four straight Europa League wins and a seven-game unbeaten run in Europe, a sequence that has them pressing against one of Roger Schmidt’s best continental standards. The current run is strong enough to keep the conversation alive, but it still sits short of the longest mark Benfica are chasing.
Benfica’s current run
The latest step was the 4-1 win over Celtic at the Luz, which made it four straight European victories. Across those seven unbeaten games, Benfica have six wins and one draw, a tidy stretch that has carried them into a healthier place than most clubs manage in Europe.
That sequence has also kept them in the mix around the top of the competition, with Benfica sitting third in the Europa League table on 6 points from 2 matches. The detail that matters more, though, is the comparison with the Schmidt period. His 2022/23 European run reached 12 games without losing, so this current spell is closing in on quality rather than matching volume.
Omonia and the next hurdle
The next test is Omonia Nicosia, and they are not arriving as a soft draw. They have won both of their Europa League league-phase matches, beating Celta 1-0 in Nicosia and Celje 3-0 in Slovenia.
They have also kept things tight at the back, one of only three teams in the competition yet to concede, alongside Bayer Leverkusen and Lech Poznan. That makes the coming fixture awkward for Benfica in a way the recent run has not been.
Marco Silva has Benfica playing with momentum, and that is no small thing in a European campaign. But the number that still frames the story is 12, because Schmidt’s unbeaten benchmark remains ahead of the current seven-game run.
Written by Sam Whitfield with AI-assisted research, cross-checked against 1 outlet. How we work →
