Benfica manager has Rangers request denied by government – report
Benfica will face Rangers in an empty Estadio da Luz despite Jorge Jesus’ request that 20,000 fans should be allowed in, according to The Scottish Sun.
The Portuguese side have been able to welcome fans back to their ground and nearly 5,000 supporters watched their side beat Standard Liege last week.
But the Portuguese government have imposed stricter measures in the country to combat the spread of COVID-19 meaning that no fans will be allowed to watch the visit of Rangers, never mind 20,000.
Speaking in the last week to The Daily Record, the Benfica manager said, “There is no absolutely no need to limit the game to 5,000 supporters. We could easily accommodate 15,000 or 20,000 for the match against Rangers”.
Despite the fact that fans still aren’t allowed back into stadiums in Scotland, Rangers have played in front of fans recently, when they travelled to Liege in their first Europa League group game.
Unfortunately for Gers fans, it was only limited numbers of Liege supporters that were allowed to watch the game as they witnessed Kemar Roofe scoring from his own half to seal a 2-0 win.
We think that if you asked Steven Gerrard and his squad if they would rather play in front of no fans or in front of 20,000 Benfica fans, they would choose the latter.
Obviously, Rangers haven’t let the lack of crowds impact their performances this season as they are yet to lose a game, but we’re sure that the players will miss a crowd and an atmosphere, especially in Europe.
It would’ve been nice to see 20,000 fans in a stadium and not have to listen to artificial crowd noise but in reality, that idea was probably never going to materialise.
It certainly won’t be happening at Ibrox for a good while, after further lockdown measures were introduced across the UK.
In other Rangers news, many Gers fans have criticised one player’s performance against Kilmarnock despite the 1-0 win.