The 1978–79 season was Sport Lisboa e Benfica's 75th season in existence and the club's 45th consecutive season in the top flight of Portuguese football, covering the period from 1 July 1978 to 30 June 1979. Benfica competed domestically in the Primeira Divisão and the Taça de Portugal, and participated in the UEFA Cup after finishing second in the previous league.

After narrowly missing out on the fourth consecutive title, Benfica signed João Alves, plus Reinaldo Gomes and Carlos Alhinho. They let go of Vítor Baptista and three others. In the league, a poor start with three losses in a month, severely hindered the title race. Nevertheless, despite dropping out of the UEFA Cup at the hands of Borussia Mönchengladbach, domestically, Benfica won all league matches for three months, reaching the first place in the league. A home draw with Porto stopped their winning run, but it was a loss to Marítimo that compromised their title race. That loss followed another with Braga for the Taça de Portugal. Despite dropping points again in March, Benfica kept an entertaining battle with Porto, which came to an end when they drew again in match-day 29. Two consecutive seasons without winning the Primeira Divisão was unprecedented since 1959.

Benfica came on in the new season after barely missing the "Tetra", the fourth league title in a row, when they match Porto's 51 points but had worse goal-average. This led the members to change a long time rule about only signing Portuguese players. On 1 July 1978, in a members meet, that rule was removed. According to the press, the first foreign approached was Paul Mariner, but it did not pan out. Benfica did made the biggest signing of the window, when they brought on João Alves from Spain. Other signings included Reinaldo Gomes and the return of Carlos Alhinho. Major departures included Vítor Baptista, but also Celso Pita and Vítor Martins, both due to career-ending injuries. Benfica also replaced assistant manager Rui Silva for Peres Bandeira. The pre-season began on 31 July, and Benfica first competed in the inaugural Feyenoord Tournament with Feyenoord and Club Brugge, before making their presentation game with Nacional Montevideo on 16 August. They ended the pre-season with two friendlies with Salamanca and Molenbeek, due to obligations related to the transfers of João Alves and Carlos Alhinho.

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