Roger Schmidt: "I’m happy with the players' attitude"

PREVIEW

In this Saturday's press conference, August 26, before the Benfica-Gil Vicente match, for Matchday 3 of the Liga Betclic, Roger Schmidt assured to be happy with the players' response.

What do you expect from the game in Barcelos and the opponent?

We recently played Gil Vicente, a very important game that we won [0-2, in 2022/23]. The opposing team has changed in a lot of things, the coach has changed, they have a lot of new players. They play differently. In these first two games they managed to score goals, mainly against Portimonense, at home [5-0]. They weren't so lucky in the last game, against Vitória [2-1], but they played well. They are in good shape and I expect a difficult game, as all away games in Portugal. We will have a very strong support from our fans, just like last time, and what we want is to continue playing good football and winning games, as we did last week at home, where we played very well, with great mentality. That’s what we are going to need against Gil Vicente.

How’s the situation with Odysseas?

I have already said everything about that. I spoke at the previous press conference, after the last game [against Estrela da Amadora]. There were no more conversations and everything is very clear.

To be clear: Odysseas asked you to leave? Is he available to fight for a spot in the goal position?

I’m not going to talk about specific players, I’m going to make a more general analysis. We’re a week away from closing the transfer window. It’s a very complicated time, there are many rumors. Some players play less and think they can leave, that they can play more. There are players who receive great offers, their agents may also want them to leave, to make money... It’s always like that, but my job, as coach, is to be completely focused on what we have to do, which is to win tomorrow’s game [Saturday]. Benfica is the most important. I have 22 players available, plus the goalkeepers. It’s good, but we can’t lose more players. I’m happy with the options I have, but, of course, some adjustments may occur. There are no guarantees, as there were no guarantees that Gonçalo Ramos would stay at Benfica. We have already won the Super Cup, and we want to fight for all the other competitions in Portugal, and also compete at a very high level in the Champions League. For that, we need a very, very good team. There are players who are not happy because they did not play in the first games, which is normal. After the break for the national teams, we will have the National Championship, the Champions League and the League Cup with just a few days apart. It’s going to be a completely different scenario. Right now, all players are fit. I see them completely focused on training. The environment is very good. The performance is very good. The quality is very good. The game against FC Porto, in which we won the Super Cup [2-0], was very good. We lost the first game of the Championship against Boavista [3-2], but, in my opinion, we did everything to win and deserved to win. We played a great game at home against Estrela [2-0]. What I see is that we have great players in Benfica, all of them are focused, even those who are not in an easy situation. You may be disappointed if you don't start a game, but we have some great players on the bench who have to be prepared to enter the game. At this point I’m happy with the attitude of my players.

Schjelderup’s father said his son wanted to leave in order to play more minutes. Are you willing to let him out?

We will not announce anything. In my last answer I tried to explain the situation at Benfica and included certain players in my comments. Let’s see what will happen. But, as I said, I don’t think there will be many players leaving.

Aursnes played in the left-back position against Estrela da Amadora. What about in this game against Gil Vicente?

Fredrik [Aursnes] showed last season that he can also play very well in defense, he played three or four very good games in that position and, for him, it may be even easier to play as a left-back, because he is used to play on the left side of the attacking midfield. He did it many times last season with Grimaldo behind. He’s used to it, and I have to make choices every game. My choice in the last game was Fredrik, also to have another player in the attacking midfield. In these games we have a lot of possession and we have to find solutions in short spaces - as we saw in the game against Estrela da Amadora -, have another good player with the ball in short spaces to find solutions. That’s why I chose Fredrik. Tomorrow [Saturday] I have to make one more decision, but that was a clear and good decision for me.