The first-ever meeting between Benfica and Sporting beat the record of assists (15,204) in a soccer stadium in Portugal on the women’s side and resulted in a revenue of 38,000 euros only at the level of ticketing.
With each ticket costing two euros and fifty cents, the people responded in mass and show solidarity with the victims of the tragedy of Cyclone Adai, which hit the central region of Mozambique, Malawi and Zimbabwe on March 14.
On a day when the least important was the result, Sporting won Benfica 1-0, the match between ‘rivals’ to play distinct championships, as the ‘incarnates’ compete in the second division in the year of debut, was of celebration, of solidarity and also of records.
The first fans affected to Benfica and Sporting, among them, many children, began to enter the Estádio do Restelo, in Lisbon, at 2:40 pm, with the first ovation to happen during the climb to the pitch of the Sporting players, and later, of Benfica, for the warm-up exercises.
Already with the bench well composed, it soon became apparent that the number (12.213) record of spectators registered in a women’s football match in Portugal, at the time in 2017, in the final of the Portuguese Cup, between Sporting and Sporting de Braga, would be overcome. And it was. There were 15,204 people watching the game.
Many supporters, mixed in the benches, entered after a minute of silence in honour of the victims of the natural disaster, which, according to Mozambican authorities, rose to 501 today. The wounded remained in 1,523, but the total number of people affected amounted to 843,723.
In addition to the box office receipts coming in full to Mozambique, the speaker of the stadium announced during the interval that the sponsors of Benfica and Sporting donated two checks to the Portuguese Red Cross, each in the amount of 5,000 euros, before revealing that 15,204 spectators were present at the meeting.
Among the more than 15,000 supporters were the President of the Republic, Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa, Benfica President Luís Filipe Vieira, Minister of Health, Marta Temido, Secretary of State for Sport and Youth, João Paulo Rebelo and the ambassador of Mozambique.
