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Jesus relieved after Benfica resist Lyon fightback

Jorge Jesus said he wanted "the game to end quickly" after his SL Benfica team had their four-goal lead reduced to one late on by a thrilling Olympique Lyonnais comeback.

Jesus relieved after Benfica resist Lyon fightback
Jesus relieved after Benfica resist Lyon fightback ©UEFA.com

SL Benfica coach Jorge Jesus said he was "hoping the game would end quickly" after Olympique Lyonnais reduced a four-goal deficit to one in the closing stages of a thrilling UEFA Champions League Group B encounter. Jesus felt his team "lost its composure" and while opposite number Claude Puel outlined his frustration at events in Lisbon, he did at least take solace from Lyon's response.

Jorge Jesus, Benfica coach
It was an almost perfect performance until the 75th minute. Then we made substitutions to freshen the team up and inject some more pace into our game, but that didn't happen. The score became 4-1, 4-2 ... the team felt those blows, lost its composure and Lyon felt they could turn the game around. I was hoping the match would end quickly because Lyon were playing well, but the most important thing is that we had a great 75 minutes and won the game.

Claude Puel, Lyon coach
At 3-0 down we couldn't win anymore. The aim became to close the gap because head to head could be important and at least in that respect we're ahead of Benfica. Regarding the goals we conceded, there were two set pieces and two counterattacks after set pieces of our own. We were naive but I'll stress the second part of the second half [to the players]. We need to build on this.

The players who came on were interesting, especially Jean [Makoun], who could not start, and Alex Lacazette. It's frustrating because we started well with a couple of goals ruled out. It's important that we came back. Now we have to avoid defeat in Germany [against FC Schalke 04].

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