Jorge Jesus: "Positional attack, constant pressing and more clinical"

PREVIEW

It is with two victories and two good displays in the Liga NOS that Benfica steps onto the pitch on Sunday (6:30 pm, at Estádio da Luz) in the match against Farense, for matchday 3. 

Farense, a team where you played and that is back in the 1st division 18 year later, faced Benfica in a training-match in the pre-season. What opponent do you expect to find this Sunday at Estádio da Luz?

I am extremely pleased that Farense has returned to the 1st Division. It is a club where I enjoyed playing. As for the match, I think it will fit in with what was the encounter against Moreirense. Although we played with Farense in the pre-season, this match will have nothing to do with it. They will want to be a defensively organized team, they will want to surprise us on a set piece or on the counter and these will be the moments of play that may be most important for them. We will almost certainly spend most of the time in positional attack, in a constant press, because this is our DNA. It will be a game based on these factors. We will create several opportunities and we hope to be even more clinical than what we were in the last match.

You have been very straightforward with the journalists... Is Vertonghen recovered? Is he going to play against the Farense? And Otamendi, is he going to play?

Vertonghen will not play! He had a complicated injury, fractured a bone in his face, it's a serious injury. As for Otamendi, he will play! He is a player who still doesn't know our ideas and routines, but he knows the game, has a lot of experience and comes from a team where he played at the highest level. He will not play alongside Ferro, but alongside Jardel.

What confidence does the Otamendi-Jardel partnership gives you?

I chose Jardel to play alongside Otamendi because he worked with me for several years, he knows my defensive ideas, although they're not the same, because I'm not the same coach I was when I was [first time] at Benfica.  That's why the duo for this game will not be Otamendi-Ferro, but Otamendi-Jardel, exactly because I think Jardel can help Otamendi. 

Text: Diogo Nascimento, João Sanches and Sónia Antunes

Photos: Tânia Paulo / SL Benfica