# 1995–96 S.L. Benfica season

The 1995–96 season was Sport Lisboa e Benfica's 92nd season in existence and the club's 62nd consecutive season in the top flight of Portuguese football, covering the period from 1 July 1995 to 30 June 1996. It involved Benfica competing in the Primeira Divisão and the Taça de Portugal. Benfica qualified for the UEFA Cup by coming third in previous League.
After failing to renew the title in the past season, the club brought in several players during the transfer market, with Ricardo Gomes, Valdo, Calado and Marcelo assuming regular starter roles. However, the club lost all of his more historic players as the case of Neno, Vítor Paneira, Isaías and César Brito. With the animosity around Artur Jorge increasing, poor results in September caused his departure. Despite an irregular season in the league, various winning streaks helped the team reach their second-place finish by 23 March, after a home win against Porto. In the Portuguese Cup, a strong performance from Marcelo throughout the competition, who finish as the tournament top scorer, guided the team to the final, where João Pinto delivered the trophy after scoring a double.

## Season summary

The second season of Artur Jorge started with much more distrust over his abilities. From the large number of signings in the year before, only a handful prove noteworthy, and Tavares and Nelo even showed a complete inability to play for a big club. Despite that, more exits followed, with a 28-year-old Vítor Paneira, and the club league topscorer in the year before; Isaías, causing the most anger. Benfica signed mostly in Portugal, as with the league top goalscorer, Hassan, but also searched in Europe, bringing Valdo and Ricardo Gomes, back from France.
The league start was not ideal, as the team dropped four points in three match-days, leading to Artur Jorge being sacked after the build up of fan pressure. The club then selected Mário Wilson as his replacement. Benfica slowly started collecting wins over the following weeks, but after the defeat against FC Porto in the Clássico of 5 November, the distance to the league leader increased to eight points. In Europe, the ended their campaign, after being knock out by Bayern Munich, with Klinsmann scoring six goals, in what the press dubbed 'Cataklinsmann'.
In November, with Porto putting on a strong campaign, the club set eyes on closing the distance on the second place, occupied by Sporting. At the end of January, Benfica reach the second place for the first time, after João Pinto led the club past Vitória Guimarães. In the following month, a strong performance by Marcelo, allowed the club to progress through the Portuguese Cup semi-finals after beating Vitória de Guimarães. However, February did not go as well in the league race, with the club spending two weeks on the fourth place.
In March, Benfica received and beat Porto, with João Pinto scoring the winning goal, as he have done in Guimarães. With this win, the club re-assumed the second place, which would be its final league position, finishing the season six points ahead of Sporting, but an eleven behind Porto, which had the title wrapped up nearly a month before. In April, with only the Portuguese Cup to compete for. Marcelo continued his goalscoring record on the national cup, scoring a double in overtime for the semi-final against Leiria. On the 18 May, in the 1996 Taça de Portugal final, João Pinto scored two against Sporting in a 3–1 win, with the club winning its twenty-third Taça de Portugal. The celebrations were nonetheless cancelled due to the death of a Sporting supporter, after being accidentally hit by a lost flare.

## Competitions

Win  Draw  Loss  Postponed

### Overall record

| Competition | First match | Last match | Record | Record | Record | Record | Record | Record | Record | Record | Record |
| Competition | First match | Last match | G | W | D | L | GF | GA | GD | Win % | Source |
| Primeira Divisão | 26 August 1995 | 12 May 1996 | 34 | 22 | 7 | 5 | 57 | 27 | +30 | 064.71 | |
| Taça de Portugal | 1 December 1995 | 18 May 1996 | 6 | 5 | 1 | 0 | 12 | 2 | +10 | 083.33 | |
| UEFA Cup | 12 September 1995 | 5 December 1995 | 6 | 3 | 1 | 2 | 10 | 11 | −1 | 050.00 | |
| Total | Total | Total | 46 | 30 | 9 | 7 | 79 | 40 | +39 | 065.22 |

### Primeira Divisão
#### League table

| Pos | Teamvte | Pld | W | D | L | GF | GA | GD | Pts | Qualification or relegation |
| 1 | Porto (C) | 34 | 26 | 6 | 2 | 84 | 20 | +64 | 84 | Qualification to Champions League group stage |
| 2 | Benfica | 34 | 22 | 7 | 5 | 56 | 25 | +31 | 73 | Qualification to Cup Winners' Cup first round |
| 3 | Sporting CP | 34 | 19 | 10 | 5 | 69 | 27 | +42 | 67 | Qualification to UEFA Cup first round |
| 4 | Boavista | 34 | 19 | 8 | 7 | 59 | 28 | +31 | 65 | Qualification to UEFA Cup first round |
| 5 | Vitória de Guimarães | 34 | 19 | 5 | 10 | 55 | 39 | +16 | 62 | Qualification to UEFA Cup first round |
* ↑ Benfica qualified for the Cup Winners' Cup as Portuguese Cup winners

#### Results by round

| Round | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 | 27 | 28 | 29 | 30 | 31 | 32 | 33 | 34 |
| Ground | H | A | H | A | H | A | H | A | H | A | H | A | H | A | A | H | A | A | H | A | H | AA | H | A | H | A | H | A | H | A | H | H | A | H |
| Result | D | W | D | W | W | L | W | W | W | L | D | W | W | W | W | W | D | L | W | W | W | L | D | W | W | D | W | W | W | D | L | W | W | W |
| Position | 10 | 7 | 6 | 4 | 3 | 5 | 3 | 3 | 3 | 4 | 4 | 4 | 3 | 3 | 3 | 3 | 3 | 4 | 4 | 2 | 2 | 4 | 4 | 3 | 2 | 3 | 2 | 2 | 2 | 2 | 2 | 2 | 2 | 2 |

#### Matches
### Friendlies
## Player statistics

The squad for the season consisted of the players listed in the tables below, as well as staff member Artur Jorge (manager), Zoran Filipovic (assistant manager) and Mário Wilson (manager).
Note 1: Note: Flags indicate national team as defined under FIFA eligibility rules. Players may hold more than one non-FIFA nationality.
Note 2: Players with squad numbers marked ‡ joined the club during the 1995–96 season via transfer, with more details in the following section.
| No. | Pos | Nat | Player | Total | Total | Primeira Divisão | Primeira Divisão | Taça de Portugal | Taça de Portugal | UEFA Cup | UEFA Cup |
| No. | Pos | Nat | Player | Apps | Goals | Apps | Goals | Apps | Goals | Apps | Goals |
| 1 | GK | BEL | Michel Preud'homme | 45 | -37 | 33 | -24 | 6 | -2 | 6 | -11 |
| 2 | DF | BRA | Paulo Pereira | 11 | 0 | 7 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 4 | 0 |
| 3$^‡$ | DF | BRA | Ricardo Gomes | 37 | 4 | 29 | 4 | 5 | 0 | 3 | 0 |
| 4 | DF | POR | Hélder Cristóvão | 43 | 2 | 31 | 2 | 6 | 0 | 6 | 0 |
| 5$^‡$ | DF | BRA | Paredão | 12 | 1 | 8 | 1 | 2 | 0 | 2 | 0 |
| 6 | MF | POR | Paulo Bento | 40 | 3 | 29 | 2 | 6 | 0 | 5 | 1 |
| 7$^‡$ | MF | POR | José Calado | 22 | 0 | 14 | 0 | 4 | 0 | 4 | 0 |
| 8 | MF | POR | João Vieira Pinto | 42 | 23 | 31 | 18 | 6 | 4 | 5 | 1 |
| 9$^‡$ | FW | MAR | Hassan Nader | 14 | 8 | 10 | 6 | 1 | 0 | 3 | 2 |
| 10$^‡$ | MF | BRA | Valdo Filho | 39 | 6 | 30 | 4 | 6 | 0 | 3 | 2 |
| 11$^‡$ | MF | ROU | Basarab Panduru | 19 | 4 | 15 | 3 | 1 | 0 | 3 | 1 |
| 13 | DF | POR | Dimas Teixeira | 41 | 3 | 30 | 2 | 6 | 0 | 5 | 1 |
| 14$^‡$ | DF | POR | Marinho | 24 | 1 | 18 | 1 | 3 | 0 | 3 | 0 |
| 15 | FW | BRA | Aílton Delfino | 5 | 0 | 4 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 |
| 16$^‡$ | DF | BRA | King | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 |
| 17 | DF | POR | Pedro Henriques | 19 | 0 | 16 | 0 | 2 | 0 | 1 | 0 |
| 18 | MF | POR | Edgar Pacheco | 31 | 2 | 21 | 2 | 4 | 0 | 6 | 0 |
| 19 | MF | POR | Bruno Caires | 23 | 0 | 16 | 0 | 4 | 0 | 3 | 0 |
| 20$^‡$ | MF | BUL | Ilian Iliev | 24 | 1 | 19 | 1 | 5 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| 21$^‡$ | FW | BRA | Luiz Gustavo | 14 | 0 | 14 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| 25$^‡$ | FW | BRA | Marcelo | 39 | 13 | 27 | 7 | 6 | 5 | 6 | 1 |
| 22 | MF | POR | Daniel Kenedy | 30 | 2 | 22 | 1 | 3 | 0 | 5 | 1 |
| 23$^‡$ | MF | ANG | Paulão | 20 | 3 | 18 | 3 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| 24$^‡$ | GK | POR | Fernando Brassard | 2 | -4 | 2 | -4 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| 26 | DF | POR | Nélson Veríssimo | 3 | 0 | 3 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| 27 | MF | POR | Maniche | 2 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 0 |
| 30$^‡$ | FW | ARG | Mauro Airez | 28 | 3 | 24 | 0 | 4 | 3 | 0 | 0 |

## Transfers
### In

| Entry date | Position | Player | From club |
| July 1995 | AM | Valdo Filho | Paris SG |
| July 1995 | CB | Ricardo Gomes | Paris SG |
| July 1995 | CM | José Calado | Estrela da Amadora |
| July 1995 | ST | Marcelo | Tirsense |
| July 1995 | RB | Marinho | Sporting |
| July 1995 | ST | Hassan | Farense |
| July 1995 | CM | Ilian Iliev | Levski Sofia |
| July 1995 | AM | Basarab Panduru | Steaua București |
| July 1995 | FW | Mauro Airez | Belenenses |
| July 1995 | RW | Paulão | Vitória Setúbal |
| July 1995 | GK | Fernando Brassard | Gil Vicente |
| July 1995 | CB | Paredão | Tirsense |
| July 1995 | FW | Luiz Gustavo | Belenenses |
| July 1995 | ST | Aílton Delfino | São Paulo |

### In by loan

| Entry date | Position | Player | From club | Return date |
| July 1995 | CB | King | Farense | 30 June 1996 |

### Out

| Exit date | Position | Player | To club |
| July 1995 | GK | Neno | Vitória Guimarães |
| July 1995 | LB | António Veloso | Retired |
| July 1995 | CB | William | Bastia |
| July 1995 | FB | Abel Xavier | Bari |
| July 1995 | CB | Paulo Madeira | Belenenses |
| July 1995 | CB | Paulão | Vasco da Gama |
| July 1995 | CB | Carlos Mozer | Kashima Antlers |
| July 1995 | CM | José Tavares | Boavista |
| July 1995 | RW | Amaral | Felgueiras |
| July 1995 | RW | Vítor Paneira | Vitória Guimarães |
| July 1995 | CM | Nelo | Boavista |
| July 1995 | AM | Mario Stanić | Club Brugge |
| July 1995 | CM | Rui Esteves | Belenenses |
| July 1995 | ST | Edílson | Palmeiras |
| July 1995 | ST | Claudio Caniggia | Boca Juniors |
| July 1995 | FW | Isaías | Coventry City |
| July 1995 | ST | César Brito | Belenenses |
| December 95 | ST | Aílton Delfino | São Paulo |

### Out by loan

| Exit date | Position | Player | To club | Return date |
| July 1995 | ST | Akwá | Alverca | 30 June 1997 |
| December 95 | AM | Basarab Panduru | Neuchâtel Xamax | 30 June 1996 |