After narrowly defeating Blackburn 1–0 away from home, Man City finally emerged from the brutal run of fixtures at the end of April.
Although the team still had to continue competing on three fronts, at least it could finally catch its breath.
After all, their upcoming opponents were nothing like Premier League powerhouses Arsenal and Tottenham Hotspur. In the Europa League, meanwhile, Man City would face Portuguese Super League side Benfica, while Porto would take on Villarreal.
The lineup of this season's Europa League semifinalists was quite interesting.
In fact, if Braga's presence in the quarterfinals was taken into account, it was easy to see the strength of the Portuguese Super League among Europe's second-tier leagues.
Portuguese teams occupied three of the eight quarterfinal spots and half of the semifinal spots. The Portuguese Super League could be called the strongest among Europe's second-tier leagues.
Before the Europa League got underway, the British media also began paying attention to the Portuguese Super League. The Times even published a detailed report to help fans better understand the league, especially Man City's upcoming opponent, Benfica.
It was rather surprising that Benfica had made it to the Europa League semifinals.
The club's finances had not been in good shape in recent years.
Everyone knew that Benfica and Sporting Lisbon were bitter local rivals. Back when Su Dong and Rony played for Sporting Lisbon, Mendes had been closely connected with the Green Lions, allowing him to sign a whole group of young players from Sporting Lisbon.
Yet precisely because of his relationship with Sporting Lisbon, Mendes had not worked much with Benfica.
The real turning point came in 2009.
At the time, Benfica was suffering from a financial crisis. It had been forced to mortgage 25 percent ownership of twelve first-team players to a Portuguese