After knocking Ajax out of the Champions League, Benfica’s Alex Grimaldo revealed Rui Costa provided timely pre-match motivation.
Tuesday’s hard-fought 1-0 win in Amsterdam put Benfica through 3-2 on aggregate, and the majority of the match saw Benfica defensively scrambling and scrapping.
It was only the club’s second win in the last 15 away matches in the Champions League, the other being a 3-2 win over AEK Athens in the 2018-19 group stage.
The influential Grimaldo embodied the team’s determination on an individual level, playing a full 90 minutes and seeing the result through despite multiple medical treatments.
The 26-year-old revealed the team received ample motivation beforehand from Rui Costa, the legendary former Benfica player and sporting director who is now president, following Luis Filipe Vieira's arrest in June.
"Before the game, he motivated the players, told us to dream and enjoy these types of games and in the end that’s what we did," Grimaldo told Eleven post-match.
"It was a game of great responsibility, because we know that in the league things are not going well, but we give everything for this club. We had the dream of reaching the quarter-finals and we did it."