Otamendi won every duel

Nicolás Otamendi was insurmountable in Benfica's victory against Nacional (0-2), on Thursday, December 19, in the game in hand from matchday 8 of the Liga Betclic. The eagles' captain won every duel he was involved in at the Estadio da Madeira, a performance that also earned the praise and recognition of coach Bruno Lage.

The numbers show the quality of the performance put in by the Argentina World Cup-winning central defender, who won all five of his duels on the ground.

Also in the air, in the intense contest with the opponents, we saw the “the outstanding game”, as coach Bruno Lage characterized it at the end of the match, in a press conference: "I think Nico [Otamendi] played a great game. We needed our captain's personality, the aerial game he has, the balls he won, the second balls he won, and what he made the team play for."

Benfica's captain won six aerial duels in a match in which he didn't commit a single foul. The statistics are from the Sofascore platform.

In addition to these figures, which attest to the magnitude of the No. 30's performance, he made four clearances, blocked two shots, made three interceptions and made four tackles. In total, Otamendi took part in 78 actions with the ball and recorded an 88% pass efficiency rate (52 correct passes in 59 attempts).