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Schalke secure top spot in Lisbon

Benfica were disappointing throughout but Lyon's late equaliser in the 2-2 draw against Hapoel Tel Aviv in the night's other Group B game meant the Portuguese champions finished third and grabbed a Europa League place.

"I did not want to know what was going on in the other game, but we finished third thanks to the Lyon draw. That's football, and we ending up benefiting," Benfica coach Jorge Jesus said.

The German team scored with their first real chance of the game when Ivan Rakitic's cross was chested down by Raul for his fellow Spaniard Jurado to fire in on 19 minutes, with a static Benfica defence caught ball-watching.

"The priority was to win, go through to the Europa League with nine points and not think about third parties. We didn't play well in the first half, we were not dynamic and the players were too rooted to their positions," Jesus added.

Lacking aggression going forward, Benfica's sole clear chance in the first half was a fierce long-distance effort by midfielder Carlos Martins that went just wide.

The Lisbon club have failed to repeat last season's impressive performances and the fans, already unhappy that the side are eight points adrift of Porto in the domestic league, made their point by booing the team during parts of the game.

"Unfortunately things have not been going like we want. We are anxious to change matters quickly and sometimes that is hurting us. We have to keep our feet on the ground, we still have the Europa League," defender David Luiz said.

Gregg Davies is the Chief Sub Editor of FourFourTwo magazine, joining the team in January 2008 and spending seven years working on the website. He supports non-league behemoths Hereford and commentates on Bulls matches for Radio Hereford FC. His passions include chocolate hobnobs and attempting to shoehorn Ronnie Radford into any office conversation.