Bryan Mbeumo was on target as Brentford drew 1-1 with Benfica on Thursday evening.
Mbeumo capitalised on Morato’s sloppy back-pass to give Thomas Frank's side an early lead in Lisbon, but the Eagles levelled on 24 minutes when Vangelis Pavlidis poked home Álvaro Carreras’s cross at the front post.
Kevin Schade led the line for Brentford with Igor Thiago sidelined by a meniscus injury.
Vitória, a bald eagle, soared above the stadium before kick-off as the noise levels rose inside Estádio da Luz. The hosts, perhaps inspired by their winged mascot, looked to get off to a flying start on the pitch and fashioned the first chance of note in the fifth minute.
Pavlidis released Leandro Barreiro beyond the Bees’ backline with a deft touch and the midfielder was brought down by Myles Peart-Harris on the edge of the box. Fredrik Aursnes curled the resulting free-kick over the crossbar.
Brentford took the lead four minutes later. Schade’s ball up the left channel was intercepted by Morato and the defender’s back-pass to goalkeeper Anatoliy Trubin was underhit, which allowed the alert Mbeumo to steal in and finish first time into the bottom corner.
Benfica levelled midway through the first half. Aursnes played a short pass into the overlapping Carreras down the left, who took the ball in his stride, advanced to the byline and delivered a low, fizzing cross to the front post. Pavlidis made no mistake in poking beyond Hákon Valdimarsson from close range.
Matt Cox and Frank Onyeka replaced Valdimarsson and Yehor Yarmoliuk at the break.
Two minutes after the restart, a corner dropped to João Mário inside Brentford’s box and his driven effort deflected off Nathan Collins and flew just wide of Cox’s left post.
Cox showed his reflexes to deny Gianluca Prestianni on 56 minutes, diving to his left to get a strong hand on the winger’s bending effort from 25 yards.
Prestianni then turned provider, lifting the ball into the area for Arthur who shot first time into the side netting.
On 64 minutes, Mbeumo cut in from the right and saw a trademark curling effort strike the far post. Moments later, at the other end, Arthur drove low across the face of goal and narrowly off target.
On 69 minutes, shortly after coming on as a substitute, Ji-soo Kim made a brave block to prevent Aursens’ fierce shot from testing Cox.
João Rego, at full stretch inside the six-yard box, then turned Jan-Niklas Beste’s cross from the left side wide of the post.
In the final minute of regulation time, Martim Neto received a pass from João Rêgo, took a touch to set himself on the edge of the box and forced Cox into a smart stop.
Prestianni’s cross from the right was then flicked on by Arthur into the path of Casper Tengstedt, and the forward’s left-footed shot from the centre of the box lacked power and was straight at Cox.
Gouveia saw his shot blocked by Conor McManus in the final seconds as Brentford withstood some late Benfica pressure to draw their second pre-season friendly of the summer.
Benfica: Trubin, Carreras (Beste HT), Morato (Neto 72), Bah (João Mário HT), Neres (Prestianni HT), Aursnes (Tengstedt 72), Pavlidis (Cabral HT), Barreiro (Bajrami 71), Leonardo (Gouveia HT), Tomás (Silva), Florentino (Rêgo 71)
Brentford: Valdimarsson (Cox HT); Roerslev (McManus 66), Collins (Crama 66), Pinnock (Ji-soo 66), Ajer (Fredrick 66); Yarmoliuk (Onyeka HT, Booth 85), Janelt (Owen 80); Mbeumo (Morgan 66), Wissa (Konak 66), Peart-Harris; Schade (Yogane 66)
Subs not used: Rose
Attendance: 40,826
Frank: A good test and a great experience
Head coach Thomas Frank was pleased with his side's performance in the pre-season draw against Benfica, and also touched on the fantastic experience of the Bees taking on the Portuguese giants in the historic Estádio da Luz.
He stated: “It’s a great experience for everyone. The Premier League is the best league in the world, we are privileged to play in it, but sometimes we don’t think or talk enough about the other countries or clubs.
“Benfica is a huge club, I don’t know if we really understood that, but we come to this fantastic stadium and they bring over 40,000 to a friendly - it’s impressive.
“It was another good test against another good opponent. I thought we started the game very well, until they equalised I felt we were more on top of the game.
“The second half started slow but we grew into it; the last half-hour, we played with a very young team - well done to them and to everyone who has been involved in their development. What a great experience for them today.”
Pinnock: Benfica’s high press a big test
Brentford defender Ethan Pinnock believes that Thursday’s game against Benfica was a “good test” in preparation for the upcoming Premier League season.
“It was a great experience,” he said. “They’re a side with a lot of calibre and a lot of history and it was a packed-out stadium. It was a good test.”
On Benfica’s high-pressing game, Pinnock added: “It posed us a challenge. One of the things we focus on is trying to play out, so that helped us.
“They provided a difficult situation and we had to solve it. More often than not, we solved it. There are things we can tweak but overall we did fairly well.”