Lech Poznań lose 3:1 at Benfica and slip to second-last in Europa League

Not the birthday present Niels Frederiksen was hoping for. Lech Poznań lost 3:1 to Benfica in Lisbon on Thursday, on the Danish coach's 56th birthday.

It was Lech's third defeat in this season's Europa League, and it drops the Polish champions to second from bottom in the table.

What happened?

Lech started badly, again. After Yannick Agnero lost the ball in the sixth minute, Benfica broke fast. Andreas Schjelderup crossed low, goalkeeper Mateusz Lis struggled to hold it, and Rafa Silva pushed it in at the second attempt while the defenders looked on.

Lech then spent long spells without a rhythm. Benfica pressed hard, and the visitors' attack, which terrorises the Ekstraklasa (Poland's top league), barely existed at the Estádio da Luz. Patrik Walemark and Pablo Rodriguez, Lech's stars, created almost nothing.

The hosts could have scored more. Schjelderup missed one-on-one, and Terry Yegbe then cleared off the line, hitting his own crossbar, but the ball ended up in Lis's hands.

A brief spark

After an hour, Lech finally looked better. Walemark had a header superbly saved by Anatolii Trubin, who plays in goal for Benfica.

Then Benfica hit back on the counter. Substitute Gianluca Prestianni made it 2:0 in the 67th minute. Five minutes later Enzo Barrenechea passed straight to Leo Bengtsson, who rolled the ball into an empty net to make it 2:1.

Hope lasted about 20 minutes. In the final minute, Georgiy Sudakov scored from a tight angle to make it 3:1.

Former Lech academy player Jakub Kamiński, who joined Benfica in the summer, was back from injury but stayed on the bench for the whole match.

What does it mean?

Lech played Benfica in the Europa League group stage in 2020 and lost 4:2 and 4:0. Six years later, the gap in class still looks clear. Rafa Silva is the only Benfica player left from those games.

Frederiksen has been Lech's coach since the summer of 2025. Fellow Polish side Jagiellonia Białystok also lost on Thursday, to Levski Sofia, so reaching the knockout stage looks very hard for both clubs.