It’s 20 games in a row without losing. These are the draws with PSG, at Luz and Parque dos Príncipes. They are the victories with Juventus, in Luz and Turin. It is the triumph of the Dragon. It is the qualification for the round of 16 of the Champions League. It is the isolated leadership of the Primeira Liga. On the cusp of early November, on the cusp of a World Cup that will make this season atypical, Benfica is living a dream. A very real dream, written in permanent ink by narrator Roger Schmidt.
The truth is that, at the entrance of the reception this Saturday in Desp. Chaves, the Reds only had reason to smile. The previous week had been full of goals, with victories against FC Porto and Juventus and the consequent passage to the next phase of the Champions League, and not even the scare of the last 15 minutes against the Italians stopped the optimism that hung over Luz. Between the certainty of the correct bet on Schmidt, the performance of reinforcements like Enzo or Aursnes and the moments of Rafa or António Silva, nothing in Benfica’s football seems to be going wrong.
In this context, it was the right moment for the German coach to say if he still feels the phrase that filled the hearts of all the red fans as soon as he landed in Lisbon: “Who loves football, loves Benfica”. “By then I already had the right feeling. It’s not that he already knew the club very well, but that’s what he felt when he talked to people, with Rui Costa, Lourenço [Pereira Coelho, diretor-geral]. I had the idea that it was the right place to come to train and that’s why I said what I said. Now I know the club, the people, the culture. It is an extraordinary club, there is a lot of passion, a lot of love, quality, knowledge. Just watch games like Tuesday [com a Juventus] and see the atmosphere in the stadium, the passion of the people. It was everything she expected to find. Now I know Benfica much better and I am very happy to have felt that even before signing a contract”, Schmidt shot in the preview of the reception to Desp. Keys.
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Source: Observadora
