Barcelona's Raphinha involved in post-match incident after responding to insults
Raphinha scored Barcelona's winner deep into stoppage time before he was involved in a post-match confrontation after taking issue with some of the insults hurled at him
by Samuel Meade · The MirrorBarcelona hero Raphinha was central to a post-match scuffle as he bemoaned the disrespect and insults he received at Benfica.
The Catalan's frontman, who previously played at Benfica's cross city rivals Sporting Lisbon, came up with a 95th minute strike to win a nine-goal thriller for the Spanish side. However after the celebrations there were some unsavoury scenes.
Players from Barcelona and Benfica clashed in the tunnel as they headed back to the dressing room with Raphinha finding himself in the thick of it. The Brazilian admitted, having been subjected to abuse, that he gave it back, which saw tempers flare.
He told reporters: "I'm someone who respects everyone. When I was leaving the pitch, people were insulting me. I returned the insults. I know I shouldn't. It got heated with the Benfica players ... they preferred to insult me.
"I'm someone who doesn't let anything lie. I respect them if they respect me, but I don't shut up if they insult me. It's normal after an ending like that to a match."
Raphinha ultimately had the last laugh and believes he's in the best form of his career after scoring a brace in Barcelona's win, which left them second in the standings, owing to six successive wins in the Champions League as they booked their place straight into the round of 16.
The ex-Leeds man has now scored eight times in Europe this season - only team-mate Robert Lewandowski has more with nine - and means he's scored 22 times in all competitions which is a career-best figure despite the campaign having months to run.
"I think I am in the best moment of my career, yes," he added. "We knew it would be hard here, we knew how good they were, especially playing in front of their fans, their players individually and as a team, but what matters is that we knew to keep our focus during the entire game.
"We had the mindset that we could turn the game around after the break, scoring a second to get back into the game and we managed to do it in the end. We never gave up and grabbed a win."
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