Brazilian Vinícius Júnior responded to the alleged racist insult in his own way, securing Real Madrid's Spanish qualification to the Champions League round of 16, in the renewed 2-1 victory over Portuguese Benfica in the return leg of the playoff.
At the Santiago Bernabéu stadium, Vinícius—who scored the winning goal in the first leg and had Argentine Benfica midfielder Gianluca Prestianni sent off because of him after claiming he directed a racist insult at him—clinched the 15-time European champions' qualification by scoring the winning goal in the second match.
After Real Madrid fell behind to a goal from Rafa Silva (14'), French player Aurélien Tchouaméni equalized (16'), a goal that was enough to reach the round of 16, but Vinícius scored the winner to seal qualification (80').
Coach Álvaro Arbeloa's team delivered the required performance despite the absence of the team's star and top scorer, French player Kylian Mbappé, due to injury.
Benfica players pressed to score an advancing goal, and they did so through Rafa Silva with a close-range shot after the ball reached him from a deflection by Marco Asensio toward his own goal, which Belgian goalkeeper Thibaut Courtois parried (14').
But the response came no more than two minutes later with the equalizer via a low shot from Aurélien Tchouaméni from inside the box following a cross from Uruguayan Federico Valverde (16').
In the second half, the visitors nearly scored a second goal through Silva, but his powerful shot hit the crossbar and went out (60'), then a second chance arose for Greek player Evangelos Pavlidis near the left post (69').
Arbeloa was forced to substitute Asensio due to injury and brought on Austrian David Alaba in his place (77').
Vinícius ended matters with the winning goal from a counterattack after receiving the ball from the standout Valverde, where he faced Ukrainian goalkeeper Anatoliy Trubin and placed it to his left (80').
