🎥 Bruno Lage: “Quality, initiative and joy” 

PREVIEW

Is this Benfica, with "quality, initiative and joy", that Bruno Lage wants in the home match against SC Braga, at 8:45 pm on Wednesday, in a match from the last 16 of the Portuguese Cup, a competition where the goal is clear: "Go through to the next round."

SC Braga has been a very competent team in the knockout competitions: Portuguese Cup, League Cup and Europa League, where it was the team with more points. Do you think it's this SC Braga that's going to show up at Estádio da Luz?

I never look at the result, I look at what the team produces on the pitch. We see a lot of matches from SC Braga, but not the way they score or concede goals. I essentially look at what the quality of the team's game is. That's what I expect tomorrow [Wednesday]: a very competent team, with good organization, excellent players and an experienced coach. We must play as we did in the last few matches, with quality, initiative, joy, score goals and win to go through to the next round, which is our goal.  

The games against SC Braga are theoretically complicated, but in the last two Benfica have scored eight goals and conceded only one. It is a difficult opponent, but do you know the weakness of SC Braga?

Every moment we have to be at our best level. I always look at the way the team has been playing. Tomorrow [Wednesday] is another moment when we must be very well, understand the opponent, have a very well defined strategy, choose the best eleven and win the game.

Text: Diogo Nascimento and Filipa Fernandes Garcia

Pics: Isabel Cutileiro / SL Benfica