A lone first half goal from January catch Ariza Makukula was enough for lackluster hosts Benfica to book a 1-0 win over Nürnberg in the first leg of their UEFA Cup round of 32 tie on Thursday night.

US international Freddy Adu worked the final five minutes to help the Eagles back the slim win into their garage.

Der Club came out the early aggressors, with Quim forced to turn away Nicky Adler on the quarter hour and Tomáš Galásek in the 27th minute.

Benfica barely had any attack to speak of until Rui Costa slalomed through defenders to tee up Makukula two minutes before intermission.

The match evened up a bit after the break, but the best chance of the period fell to Nürnberg when Quim had to stretch to tip around a dipping Marco Engelhardt effort with 16 minutes to play. 

The Stadium of Light crew head to Germany for the return in a week's time, but not before they visit league foe Naval on Sunday.

Scoring
BEN - Ariza Makukula 1 (Rui Costa) 43'

Line-ups
BEN - Quim; Nélson, Luisão, Kostas Katsouranis, Léo, Nuno Assis (Freddy Adu 85'), Petit, Rui Costa, Christian Rodríguez (David Luiz 85'), Ariza Makukula, Óscar Cardozo (Ángel Di Maria 59')

FCN - Jaroslav Blazek; Gláuber, Andreas Wolf, Tomáš Galásek, Marco Engelhardt, Peer Kluge, Javier Pinola, Dominik Reinahrdt, Ivan Saenko, Nicky Adler (Jan Kristiansen 46'), Jan Koller

ON THE SIDELINE
Young striker Preston Zimmerman did not dress as Hamburg opened their FC Zürich tie with a 3-1 away win.

Likewise, Johann Smith did not take part as Bolton scored an impressive 1-0 first leg home win over Atlético Madrid.