The 2014 Taça da Liga final was the final match of the

2013–14 Taça da Liga The 2013–14 Taça da Liga was the seventh edition of the Taça da Liga, a Portuguese football knockout competition organized by the Portuguese League for Professional Football (LPFP). It was contested by the 33 clubs competing in the 2013–14 P ...

, the seventh season of the

Taça da Liga The Taça da Liga (), known outside Portugal as Portuguese League Cup, is an annual club football competition organised by the Liga Portuguesa de Futebol Profissional (LPFP) for teams competing in the top two tiers of Portuguese football – the ...

. Benfica defeated Rio Ave 2–0 to win a record fifth title in the competition.

Route to the final

''Note: In all results below, the score of the finalist is given first (H: home; A: away).''

Rio Ave

As a

Primeira Liga The Primeira Liga (), also known as Liga Portugal Betclic for sponsorship reasons, is a professional association football league in Portugal and the highest level of the Portuguese football league system. Organised and supervised by the Liga ...

team, Rio Ave entered the

in the

third round Third or 3rd may refer to: Numbers * 3rd, the ordinal form of the cardinal number 3 * , a fraction of one third * 1⁄60 of a ''second'', i.e., the third in a series of fractional parts in a sexagesimal number system Places * 3rd Street (di ...

. The third round consisted of three group stage matches with the group winner progressing to the semi-finals. Rio Ave were drawn in

group A Group A is a set of motorsport regulations administered by the FIA covering production derived touring cars for competition, usually in touring car racing and rallying. In contrast to the short-lived Group B and Group C, Group A vehicles wer ...

, alongside Primeira Liga sides

Paços de Ferreira Paços de Ferreira () is a city in the Porto District, in the north of Portugal. The population of the city in 2011 was 7491, while its municipality had 56,340 inhabitants, in an area of 70.99 km². Sometimes referred to as the ''Capital do ...

Vitória de Setúbal Vitoria or Vitória may refer to: People * Francisco de Vitoria (c. 1483–1546), a Spanish Renaissance theologian * Alberto Vitoria (1956–2010), Spanish footballer * Rui Vitória (born 1970), Portuguese retired footballer * Sofia Vitória (bor ...

and Segunda Liga's

Sporting da Covilhã Sporting may refer to: *Sport, recreational games and play *Sporting (neighborhood), in Alexandria, Egypt Sports clubs *Alexandria Sporting Club, a sports club from Alexandria, Egypt * BFA Sporting, a football club from Beirut, Lebanon *Real Sport ...

. The ''Vilacondenses'' opening match was a home tie against fellow first division side Paços de Ferreira. Rio Ave defeated their opponents comfortably with goals in either half from Egyptian striker Ahmed Hassan and winger

Ukra The United Kingdom Rocketry Association (UKRA) is an enabling body set up to promote and represent high power, medium power and model rocketry in the United Kingdom for educational, recreational and amateur research purposes."Rocket science and sp ...

. Rio Ave's second group stage match saw the visit of Vitória de Setúbal to the Estádio dos Arcos. After trailing to a first half goal from Setúbal's

Nélson Pedroso Nélson Miguel Martins Pedroso (born 18 June 1985) is a Portuguese professional footballer who plays as a left-back for Merelinense. Club career Pedroso was born in Guimarães. He started playing at the professional level at the age of 23, app ...

, Rio Ave's manager

Nuno Espírito Santo Nuno Herlander Simões Espírito Santo (born 25 January 1974), known as Nuno Espírito Santo or simply Nuno, is a Portuguese-São Toméan Manager (association football), football manager and former Football player, player who played as a Goalkee ...

brought on three attacking minded players in the second half in order to salvage a point for the home side. Nuno's substitutions paid off, as six minutes from the end

Joeano Joeano Pinto Chaves (born 12 August 1979), known simply as Joeano, is a Brazilian former professional footballer who played as a striker. Club career Born in Fortaleza, Ceará, Joeano moved to Portugal, where he would remain for the majority o ...

's free kick curled into the top corner and beat Vitória's

Paweł Kieszek Paweł Kieszek (; born 16 April 1984) is a Polish professional footballer who plays as a goalkeeper. After starting out at Polonia Warsaw he went on to spend most of his career in Portugal, signing in 2007 with Braga. He also played three years ...

to postpone the decision of who would progress to the semi-finals for the last group stage match. For their final group stage match, Rio Ave played away to Sporting da Covilhã. In a must win match, Rio Ave defeated the Segunda Liga side 3–1 thanks to goals from

Bruno Braga Bruno Manuel Araújo Braga (born 17 June 1983) is a Portuguese former professional footballer who played as a midfielder. Club career Born in Massarelos, Porto District, Braga began his career with hometown's S.C. Salgueiros, being sparingly u ...

, Pedro Santos and Ukra to qualify for a second consecutive League Cup semi-final. In the semi-finals, Rio Ave played host to group C winners

Braga Braga (; ) is a cities of Portugal, city and a Municipalities of Portugal, municipality, capital of the northwestern Portugal, Portuguese Braga (district), district of Braga and of the historical and cultural Minho Province. Braga Municipality ...

. In an evenly contested match, Rio Ave took the lead on 40 minutes through Ahmed Hassan, who converted from the penalty spot. The penalty came about after a long ball found an on-rushing Bruno Braga who was fouled by Braga's Aderlan Santos. As Aderlan Santos was the last man of Braga's defense, match official

Olegário Benquerença Olegário Manuel Bartolo Faustino Benquerença (born 18 October 1969 in Batalha, Portugal, Batalha) is a retired Portuguese association football, football Referee (association football), referee. As of 11 March 2009, he has refereed 11 matches ...

had no other option but to send off the Brazilian and reduce Braga to ten men. Replays showed that Santos did not make any contact with Braga, and that the foul occurred outside the penalty area. On the verge of half time, Braga equalized through Custódio, after Raul Rusescu's free kick was saved by Rio Ave's Ederson and Custódio was quickest to react to level the encounter at 1–1. Rio Ave would regain the lead on 69 minutes. A right wing cross from Ukra saw Braga fail to clear the ball on two occasions, which found Bruno Braga on the edge of the box and saw the midfielder strike a volley into

Eduardo Eduardo is the Spanish and Portuguese form of the male name Edward. Another version is Duarte. It may refer to: Association football * Dudu (footballer, born 1992) (Eduardo Pereira Rodrigues), Brazilian footballer * Eduardo (footballer, born 1 ...

's right hand top corner to make it 2–1 to the home side. Despite Braga's late pressure, Rio Ave would hold on to reach the final of the Taça da Liga for the first time in their history.

Pre-match

Venue

On 20 January, the

Portuguese League for Professional Football The Liga Portuguesa de Futebol Profissional (English: Portuguese Professional Football League), also known by its acronym LPFP, is a governing body that manages professional football club competitions in Portugal. It was founded in 1978 as Liga Po ...

(LPFP), announced that three venues — the

Estádio Cidade de Coimbra The Estádio Cidade de Coimbra (') is a stadium in Coimbra, Portugal. This stadium belongs to the Municipality of Coimbra and is mainly used by the Associação Académica de Coimbra - O.A.F., Académica de Coimbra's soccer, football team. The s ...

Coimbra Coimbra (, also , , or ), officially the City of Coimbra (), is a city and a concelho, municipality in Portugal. The population of the municipality at the 2021 census was 140,796, in an area of . The fourth-largest agglomerated urban area in Po ...

, the Estádio Dr. Magalhães Pessoa in

Leiria Leiria () is a city and municipality in the Central Region, Portugal, Central Region of Portugal. It is the 2nd largest city in that same region, after Coimbra, with a municipality population of 128,640 (as of 2021) in an area of . It is the seat o ...

and the

Estádio Municipal de Braga The Estádio Municipal de Braga (') is an All-seater stadium, all-seater Association football, football stadium located in Braga, Portugal, and the current home of S.C. Braga, Sporting Clube de Braga. It has a capacity of 30,286 spectators, maki ...

— made applications to the LPFP to show their intention of hosting the final of the Taça da Liga. On 24 February, the LPFP announced that the Estádio Dr. Magalhães Pessoa in Leiria would host the final for the first time. The Estádio Dr. Magalhães Pessoa was the home stadium of

União de Leiria União Desportiva de Leiria (), commonly known as União de Leiria, is a Portuguese professional Association football, football club based in Leiria. Founded on 6 June 1966, it currently plays in the Liga Portugal 2, holding home matches at Está ...

between 2003 and 2011 and occasionally hosts Portugal national team matches. It has a seating capacity for 23,888 spectators. Between 2002 and 2003, the stadium underwent renovation works as it was selected by the

Portuguese Football Federation The Portuguese Football Federation ( , FPF) is the governing body of Association football, football in Portugal. The federation was formed in 1914 as Portuguese Football Union (, UPF) by the three existing regional associations of Lisbon Footbal ...

as one of the host venues for the

UEFA Euro 2004 The 2004 UEFA European Football Championship, commonly referred to as Euro 2004, was the 12th edition of the UEFA European Championship, a quadrennial association football, football competition contested by the List of men's national associatio ...

. The stadium played host to two group stage matches, when both

France France, officially the French Republic, is a country located primarily in Western Europe. Overseas France, Its overseas regions and territories include French Guiana in South America, Saint Pierre and Miquelon in the Atlantic Ocean#North Atlan ...

and

Switzerland Switzerland, officially the Swiss Confederation, is a landlocked country located in west-central Europe. It is bordered by Italy to the south, France to the west, Germany to the north, and Austria and Liechtenstein to the east. Switzerland ...

played against

Croatia Croatia, officially the Republic of Croatia, is a country in Central Europe, Central and Southeast Europe, on the coast of the Adriatic Sea. It borders Slovenia to the northwest, Hungary to the northeast, Serbia to the east, Bosnia and Herze ...

Match

Details

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Taca Da Liga Final 2014

2014 The year 2014 was marked by the surge of the Western African Ebola epidemic, West African Ebola epidemic, which began in 2013, becoming the List of Ebola outbreaks, most widespread outbreak of the Ebola, Ebola virus in human history, resul ...

Taca da Liga S.L. Benfica matches Rio Ave F.C. matches Sport in Leiria May 2014 sports events in Europe May 2014 in Portugal