@Golden: I'd rate Kaboul above Garay, but other than that your comparison seems pretty fair to me.

Understandable, as I also don't see this as a fight because this is a great discussion :)

I'll first start off by saying I believe I'm giving Benfica as much credit as they deserve in my point of view. And I take nothing away from them because they truly are a great team. But my opinion is they won't beat Spurs for top four or Chelsea. Speaking of Chelsea, I only brought them up because last season they were third which basically the best a top 4 type of team would do.

I'll give my own personal opinion on which player is better when compared:

Artur v Lloris = Spurs
Pereira v Walker = ? (From what I've seen I would pick Walker but looking up Pereira I also found out he is 29 while Walker is 23 and getting better every season.)
Luisão/Vitória v Vertonghen = Spurs
Garay v Dawson/Kaboul = Benfica
Sílvio/Cortez v BAE/Rose = Benfica
Matic v Paulinho = Paulinho (While Matic is great, last season was his breakout season. You're too quick to judge him. Paulinho on the other hand is a starter for Brazil, CWC winner with Corinthians and had many great seasons already.)
Pérez v Sandro = Spurs
Salvio v Bale = Spurs
Rodrigo v Dembélé = Spurs
Gaitán v Lennon = Benfica (Yeah it's Gaitan, but remember, if Willian/Lamela joins then it will be Willian/Lamela > Gaitan)
Cardozo/Lima v Soldado/Defoe = Equal

As for the match vs Chelsea. I understand Benfica were pounding on us hard for quite some time in the game, but one simple game doesn't mean Benfica has proven they could compete with Chelsea. Teams have these moments when on paper they look like the better team and could win this with ease, but instead lose out to the opponents. It's football and things like that happen. Let's not also take away too much from the Villa game. Yeah we were facing Villa and not Porto but that match was the decider for top four. If we lost, we could have been 5th and Tottenham 4th. To make it worse, both Terry and Hazard were stretchered off and we still gave it our all in that match despite losing our captain and our most lethal forward.

So let's look at it another way. If I for example add up the scores of Chelsea vs Barcelona during Pep's time with Barcelona, we could clearly see Chelsea are undefeated against them. But that doesn't do justice to the Barcelona of '09-'11 because they were one of the best team's in the world with an amazing manager too.

I guess your comparison is fine, it's your opinion, but I'd like to point out that I'm not too quick to judge Matic. It's rather the opposite way around. He's been the glue that holds Benfica together, the main piece of the puzzle. You saw him against Chelsea as well where he had a great game.

He performed fantastic in both less important games and decisive ones (both fixtures against us, EL semis and final) and eventually got the player of the year award in Portugal, in front of other players who had brilliant seasons like Garay, Lima, Moutinho, Rodríguez and Martínez. If Matic was from Brazil, he'd be a starter. Period.

Regarding your comment on the EL final, I think they did show they're capable of handling teams like Chelsea. Benfica were able to make a really good show, not only by securing a decent scoreline in the end, but by playing impressive football, creating chances, being organized both when defending and attacking etc.

Conclusion: I think they'd manage to fight hard for the 4th, and clinch it, you don't. Chelsea are playing Aston Villa tonight, by the way. x)

@ Golden

I didn't mean to offend you. But saying Porto are better than Spurs just because Basel beat Spurs and you think Porto would beat Basel is just wrong. Barcelona lost to Celtic 2-1 but Benifica beat Celtic 2-1 too, does that mean Benifica is better than Barcelona? No. That doesn't make sense you only support it because you are a Porto fan.

I'm just saying IMO, with the new signings Spurs have brought in they would beat Porto over two legs. I'm sorry for using the word "smash", it was too harsh and out of context. If anything Spurs are only marginally better. Porto is a great team.

By the way I wasn't calling anyone horrible so keep your insults to yourself.

@Golden: I guess we'll leave at that because obviously we're not going to change each other's minds on this topic :)

@tdot,

Dynastian was the one commenting about the Basel-thing, I never mentioned that. My only problem was the word "smash". I just thought stating Spurs would smash Porto was a bit over the top. It felt like you were trying to trigger aggression as I feel we're fairly comparable to Spurs. :) Sorry 'bout the insult.