UEFA appoints 'unknown' for games of Benfica, Torreense and Sp. Braga

A UEFA announced, in the form of a statement issued through the official platforms early this Tuesday morning, that Martin Matosa is the man elected to whistle the meeting of the fourth day of the League Europa league phase, which will place, face to face, Benfica and Lech Poznan, in the Stadium of Light.

The natural judge of Ljubljana will lead an almost exclusively Slovenian team, composed of assistants Matej Zunic and Aleksandar Kasapovic, the fourth referee David Smajc and the VAR Alen Borosak. The only exception will be the Dutch Jeroen Manschat, who will play the role of AVAR, in the game scheduled for 20h00 (Hour of Continental Portugal) on Thursday.

At 31 years of age, Martin Matosa will meet for the first time in his career with a Portuguese team, in the senior plan. This was after, in the UEFA Youth League's 2024/25 sports season, having been present in the goalless draw between Braga's Under-19 Sporting and Rapid Vienna's Minho.

Benfica, remember, comes to this game in the lead of the table, with nine points, as many as Bayer Leverkusen, Bournemouth, Ferencváros and Olympiacos. Lech Poznan, for his part, lives in the 32nd position, with only one point, in equality with NK Celje, Hapoel Beer Sheva and Lillestrom.

‘Unknown’ also in Torreense-Ararat Armenia

The body governing European football also made it known that the referee of the duel between Torreense and Ararat-Armenia (which will be disputed, precisely at the same time, in the Stadium Dr. Magalhães Pessoa, in Leiria) will be Milos Milanovic, another ‘trainer’ with regard to Portuguese emblems, at this level.

In this case, the set of judges determined for this Luso-Armenian duel will even be of a single nationality, more specifically Serbian, since the assistants will be Milan Pasajlic and Svetozar Zivin, the fourth referee Pavle Ilic, the VAR Aleksandar Zivkovic and the AVAR Pavle Tomic.

The only two experiences Milos Milanovic has with Portuguese teams is a game of the under-19 of Sporting Braga (defeat before AC Milan, for the UEFA Youth League, in February 2024) and another of the national sub-21 team (match with Iceland, in March 2022, in the clearance phase for the European Championship).

The Torreense currently occupies the 28th position of the table, with the same three points of Anderlecht, Hoffenheim, AC Milan, OFI Crete, Celta de Vigo and Jagiellonia Bialystok. Ararat-Armenia, for its part, is part, together with Marseille and Celtic, of the restricted batch of teams that continues to count to ‘zeros’.

And the Aarhus-Sporting of Braga?

Also on Thursday, but at 5:45 p.m., Sporting de Braga will go to Randers Stadion, Denmark, to measure forces with Aarhus, in this case, within the third round of the league phase of the Europe Conference, in a duel that will have as main referee the German Florian Bastubner.

Sven Waschitzki and Philipp Huwe will be assistants, Robin Braun the fourth referee, Christian-Petru Ciochirca (the only ‘intruder’, since it has Austrian passport) the VAR and Katrin Rafalski the AVAR. The Portuguese are ranked 16th, with three points (in equality with Ajax, Borac, Atalanta, Gent and Friburg), and the Scandinavians are 26th, with one (such as Red Star, CSKA Sofia, Jablonec, Midtjylland, Pafos, Iberia 1999, Hearts, Getafe and Kairat Almaty).

Interestingly, of the three, he is the only one who knows what it is to whistle Portuguese teams at the highest level, since, even last July, he whistled at the second hand of the second pre-elimination of the Europa League, which culminated in a victory from Benfica to St. Gallen, in the Stadium of Light, by 5-0.