Chelsea have won all four of our previous competitive meetings with Benfica

Chelsea have won all four of our previous competitive meetings with Benfica, the most recent being the FIFA Club World Cup quarter-final in June.

We first met in the 2012 Champions League quarter-finals on our way to lifting the trophy. We won both legs – 1-0 at Estadio da Luz thanks to a 75th-minute Salomon Kalou strike, and 2-1 at Stamford Bridge with our goals coming from a Frank Lampard penalty and Raul Meireles.

The next meeting was in the Europa League final the following year at the Amsterdam Arena. Fernando Torres opened the scoring on the hour, Oscar Cardozo equalised from the penalty spot eight minutes later, and Branislav Ivanovic scored the winner in the second minute of stoppage time.

With four minutes of the 90 to play – and with Chelsea leading 1-0 – our Club World Cup match against Benfica in Charlotte this summer was suspended for one hour and 57 minutes due to a severe weather warning. The match eventually finished four hours 38 minutes after it kicked off.

It was just the second time the Blues won an extra-time contest by a margin of three goals, also defeating Swindon Town (5-2) after extra time in a first-round replay in the 1914/15 FA Cup.

Chelsea are competing in the Champions League for the 20th season, and the first since reaching the quarter-finals in 2022/23. We have made the knockout stage in each of our past eight appearances.

We our playing our 100th home Champions League match, including two third round qualifying games in 1999 against Skonto Riga and 2003 against MSK Zilina. We have won 61 of the previous 99.

After defeat to Bayern Munich, Chelsea have lost our opening game of a Champions League season in our two most recent campaigns (also in 2022/23 against Dinamo Zagreb). That is as many defeats on Matchweek 1 as in our previous 18 such matches in the competition combined (11 wins, five draws, two defeats).

Our loss in Munich was our third successive defeat in the Champions League, the longest sequence in the club’s history.

Eight Chelsea players made their Champions League debut for the club against Bayern Munich (Robert Sanchez, Malo Gusto, Tosin Adarabioyo, Moises Caicedo, Pedro Neto, Andrey Santos, Estevao Willian and Joao Pedro), the most for us in a single game in the competition.