Portuguese champions Benfica travel to the most-westerly point in Europe when they face Lusitania in the Taca de Portugal on Friday evening.

The Primeira Liga side will travel 900 miles west to the Azores to face the fourth-tier outfit in their first domestic cup tie of the season.

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Despite an excellent run of results in the league, it has still been a difficult start for Roger Schmidt and Benfica this season.

After an opening day defeat at Boavista, Benfica have won seven in a row in the league, including over potential title rivals Porto.

However, it still feels as though they have underperformed, and a last-gasp win over Estoril last time out was slightly fortuitous, with Antonio Silva grabbing a 93rd-minute winner.

That came just a matter of days after Benfica were outclassed by Inter Milan at San Siro, and they extremely fortunate to only come away with a 1-0 defeat.

This next encounter should provide Schmidt's men with absolutely no trouble given the gulf in quality, resources and stature though.

A routine and morale-boosting victory will be much needed before Benfica welcome Real Sociedad to the Estadio da Luz next midweek, looking to get their Champions League campaign going after starting with two defeats.

Benfica have been surprisingly shaky in this round of the Taca in the last three years though.

Despite facing third-tier sides on each occasion, Benfica needed penalties to see off Caldas last season, extra time to beat Trofense a year earlier, and they only managed a 1-0 success over Paredes in 2020.

Newly-promoted fourth-tier outfit Lusitania will struggle to provide as good of a fight in this one though.

They have at least made a fantastic start to their first campaign at that level in five years, with the side now unbeaten in their last five - winning four.

One of those victories came in the previous round of the Taca, as Paulo Bessa's 97th-minute strike booked their passage into the third round despite playing 50 minutes with 10 men.

Manager Ricardo Pessoa led Lusitania up last season, and he will have dreams of making it back-to-back promotions, with his side currently top of their respective fourth-tier section after six matches.

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Schmidt is likely to rotate much of his side for this one given how heavily the odds are stacked in their favour.

The Real Sociedad challenge will come just four days after this potentially awkward trip to the Azores, so many first-team players may be left at home.

Two players who definitely will not travel are Alexander Bah and Angel Di Maria, with the duo currently out injured.

Samuel Soares is likely to get a start in goal after recently being replaced by new signing Anatolii Trubin in the first team.

Some players from the Benfica B side which play in the second division are likely to get call-ups here, and some debuts may be handed out.

Lusitania's match winner from the previous round Bessa is set to start up front, and he could well be flanked by Juan Ubaldo and Canadian teenager Damantang Sylla.

Luis Felipe will be pushing them for a start in attack though, after he scored in their win over Tomar in the league on Sunday.

Goalkeeper Rui Santos is set to have the honour of leading the side out as captain in the club's biggest ever match here.

Lusitania possible starting lineup:
Rui Santos; David Semedo, Diogo Mancilla, Mosquera, Ferrara; Biai, Legatheaux, Miguel Ficher; Ubaldo, Paulo Bessa, Sylla

Benfica possible starting lineup:
Samuel Soares; Filipe Cruz, Morato, Bajrami, Jurasek; Joao Mario, Joao Neves, Rafa Silva; Musa, Tengtstedt, Tiago Gouveia

We say: Lusitania 0-7 Benfica

Regardless of how strong Schmidt opts to go with his starting XI, even a second or third-string Benfica side should comfortably thrash their fourth-tier opponents here.

Lusitania will take encouragement from Benfica's recent struggles against lower-league opposition, but they will be completely out of their depth in this one and will just have to enjoy the occasion and remain hopeful of keeping the score down.


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