Confident but always cautious, satisfied but reluctant to any hint of euphoria, eager to start another official competition but returning the issue of favoritism to journalists. The first press conference roger schmidt before a match for the Championship, in this case the first of the competition this Friday in Luz with Arouca (20:15), it turned out to be almost an extension of the way he had approached the win against Midtjylland in the middle of the day. week but with a message of strength that is becoming commonplace every time he speaks in public: despite what has happened in recent seasons and the lack of titles since August 2019 (5-0 against Sporting in the Super Cup, Benfica has to assume itself as a great club and count on the fans to make its theoretical superiority prevail.
Three branches of peace for a Neres war (the Benfica-Midtjylland chronicle)
“We are going to play at home and the game on Tuesday [com o Midtjylland] It was already a good preparation for tomorrow. [sexta-feira]. When we play at home we want to control the game and put pressure on the opponent. The challenge is to pay attention to tactical positioning, for moments of transition. The opponents watch and wait for our mistakes, but we talk a lot about this and we are prepared. We have to be attentive to the spaces that we leave open, this is always one of the topics in training. It is the first of 34 steps and we want to play attacking football from the start. We hope to score a lot of goals, we want to win trophies and to score a lot of points we have to win games”, he began by saying in the conference.
“I am excited to meet the Portuguese League. I already have experience in some leagues abroad. In Germany I coached various teams and each league has its characteristics, its culture. I’m excited to see the rival, the approach, if he’s brave on the pitch… We have to find solutions to counter Arouca’s tactics. favourites? It is not up to us to say who the favorites are. We are Benfica and we have everything we need to fight for the title. It is your task to find the favorite team. There are good teams like FC Porto, Sporting or Benfica, they are always the candidate teams. We believe in ourselves, we have to work hard. We have a good atmosphere, quality football and we have all the conditions to fight for the title until the end”, added the German, admitting that despite the little preparation time now, the team had already been preparing for these contexts before.
???????? Stay live!
— SL Benfica (@SLBenfica) August 4, 2022
“We didn’t have a lot of time between these two games. The players who played on Tuesday did not train much because they need to be fresh. Midtjylland didn’t push too hard, we tried to find solutions. We try to be aware of this in the preseason because we know that many times it depends on us. find solutions for opponents defending from behind. We were creative, we showed individual quality and it was a good preparation for the match with Arouca because we know that the rival is always looking for transitions”, he highlighted in relation to the first rival in the Championship.
???? The summary of the first leg victory of the 3rd qualifying round of #UCL!
⚽⚽⚽G. bouquets
⚽ Enzo#SLBFCM #EuAmoOBenfica pic.twitter.com/C3Basr9nsG— SL Benfica (@SLBenfica) August 3, 2022
At the same time, and apart from the opening match in national terms at the official level, Schmidt He mentioned that the squad is still too big (and the signings are not yet closed) but he did not open the game in relation to the possible departure of Weigl or other surpluses, nor to the hypothetical arrival of another goalkeeper, nor to the signings indicated by Richard. Horta and Fredrik Aursnes.
Benfica scored a hat-trick in the first match 43 years later, Ramos was the third youngest to achieve it: will he still be out this summer?
“I don’t want to talk about what the players want, what I can say is that At the moment we have many players in the squad and the situation is not ideal. They all want to be starters. There are players who are ahead of the others. Weigl is a top player, he showed it in the preseason but we’ll see what happens. It depends on the other clubs, on the players… For my part I can say that I am focused on the matches and Weigl is an important part of the team”, he said, among many compliments to Florentino Luís, “who showed a lot of quality, evolved a lot and he is an example of what a complete player is”.
???????? #neres#UCL #SLBFCM pic.twitter.com/OoSevZIdBM
— SL Benfica (@SLBenfica) August 3, 2022
“Goalkeeper? To tell you the truth, I’m impressed with what I saw in the preseason. They’re all at a good level and I’m also excited about the younger ones. I’ve seen them train hard, they’re at a very high level and For now I am satisfied with what we have. But I’m not only happy with the goalkeepers, I’m also happy with the other players. At the moment I am quite happy with the squad”, he concluded.
Source: Observadora
