Group C: Boca Juniors 2-2 Benfica
Both sides see red before Nicolás Otamendi heads home equaliser
Well, that was different. On a violently hot Monday night in Miami Gardens, day three of Fifa’s sport-style entertainment event, something unexpected happened. A football match broke out.
And not just the styling, the outlines, the aesthetic sense of a football match. As Boca Juniors tore into a 2-0 first half lead against Benfica, as the stadium interior was transformed into a sustained static field by the Boca fans, as the coaching staff on both benches leapt up in random rotation, like the world’s angriest improv night, this already felt like the real thing, blood, vim, borrowed life.
The final score was 2-2 thanks to a late equaliser scored by Nicolás Otamendi, who hovered powerfully before butting the ball into the Boca net from a corner. At which point the air seemed to shoot out through the powder blue gap in the stadium roof, as the entire Benfica squad leapt up to caper about on the pitch, an impressive feat in itself given the overall effect of the afternoon heat is like trying to walk across the surface of the planet Mercury in a Victorian diving suit made from loft insulation.
