Anatoliy Trubin still hears about the goal that pushed Benfica into the Champions League knockout stages, and even his mother now tracks football results because of it. The 24-year-old goalkeeper said she saw the listing as “Trubin 90+8” after his stoppage-time strike against Real Madrid in Lisbon, a moment he said changed his life.
“It was a funny moment,” Trubin said, adding that his mother wondered whether she was “being stupid or something” when she tried to make sense of the result. Even four months later, he said, messages keep arriving about that night, including from Barcelona supporters with “funny comments,” while Thibaut Courtois also came over immediately after the match to congratulate him.
The goal came against one of Europe’s most decorated teams and in front of a stage that seldom offers a goalkeeper a chance to become the decisive scorer. Trubin’s finish helped send Benfica through against the 15-time champions of Europe, and it remains the defining moment of a season that otherwise left the club with more questions than silverware.
Benfica went through the league season unbeaten, something Trubin said had not happened at the club since 1978, but it still finished third under Jose Mourinho. The Ukrainian said that contradiction explains the standard in Lisbon. “Not losing and winning are two different things,” he said. “Not losing is not enough for a huge club like Benfica. Our fans do not accept any other result than winning and being in first place.”
He said Benfica drew 11 matches and that the margin for satisfaction was thin. “We need to be much better,” Trubin said. The record was notable, but it did not answer the bigger expectation around the club, and it did not deliver the championship its supporters demand.
Trubin said the experience has changed how he handles pressure. “I like that in difficult moments, I can still keep a cold head,” he said, adding that he has more experience now and no longer lets mistakes linger. “You know that you can be a hero and then you can be the worst person on the planet,” he said. “And that is in one game.”
That outlook, he said, has been sharpened by the coaches he has worked with. Mourinho, he said, did not speak much but knew exactly what to say. “I really like that he does not talk too much but knows exactly what he needs to say to every,” Trubin said, before adding that he felt very lucky to have worked with one of the best coaches in history.
He also pointed to Roberto De Zerbi, whose influence appears in the way Trubin talks about staying present from one action to the next. The keeper said he has learned to keep moving after both good and bad moments, because the next action always comes quickly. That, he said, is part of becoming the kind of goalkeeper Benfica expected when it brought him in.
For Trubin, the Lisbon night against Real Madrid is now part of the club’s memory and his own. He said the result changed his life, but the season that followed showed the sharper truth: at Benfica, one famous goal can carry you for months, yet it cannot hide a year that ended without a title.
