“Showing attitude and character”

PREVIEW

In his preview of the game on matchday 34 of the Liga Betclic, on Friday, May 17, Roger Schmidt spoke of the team's ambition to play well and win three points against Rio Ave in order to end a long and demanding season on a high note. 

How do you approach the last game of the season?

Our last game is away to Rio Ave on Friday night. They've had a good season and haven't lost many games. Looking at the statistics, from the last game with them at home until tomorrow's game [Friday], Rio Ave have played against every team in the league and have only lost once. That says it all about the difficulties we're going to encounter. But we're still going to try to end the season at our best. Last Sunday, in our last home game, we showed that we're still capable of playing good football, with intensity. That's what we've been discussing this week, that we want to continue like this, play a good game and get the three points. It's been a long and demanding season, and going on vacation feeling good will be important. 

Are these kinds of matches, without objectives in the league table, more difficult to prepare for and do they require more work to get the players into the right frame of mind?

It's a challenge to get the win, three more points and reach 82. It's been a very demanding season for all the players, and these away games are always difficult, both in the middle of the season and now, at the end, before the vacations. In my opinion, it's a good opportunity to show attitude and character. That's what we want to do. As I've already said, we've had difficult times when we've lost this season, but we've always given a good response on the pitch. We lost our first [league] game against Boavista, and we want to finish with a win against Rio Ave.

The last few days have been marked by some dissent and division among the fans. There was a banner in the stadium criticizing the President's silence. In your opinion, was it important for the President to go public, not only to calm the atmosphere but also to unite the fans, with a view to next season?

Honestly, I'm not the right person to talk about it, because I don't know what happens in the media, or what other people say. There were some difficult moments during the season, also in our stadium, of course. Everyone understood that, but we also had those moments last season. I can remember when we had a difficult week, when we lost three games in one week, to Inter, FC Porto and Chaves, away from home. We had similar moments, but it's part of our job at Benfica. We have to win, because people expect us to win a lot of games, they expect our best in every game. That's our situation at Benfica. It's tough, but I think we've shown that we're ready to meet those expectations. That's how it is. The best way to avoid that is to win, that's what we try to do, achieve goals, win titles. This season, too, we tried to do our best, but it wasn't enough. We came close to winning trophies in every competition, and of course next season we want to do better.

A study has shown that Benfica are the 4th team in Europe to have wasted the most goals this season. Given that the investment in strikers has been huge, are Benfica looking for other solutions for next season? Has President Rui Costa imposed any limitations on signings?

That statistic surprises me. I didn't know that. I thought we were top of this ranking, because we missed so many chances. It's a bit like the story of this season. We've been able to create lots of moments by playing good football, with good possession, but in the end we've wasted a lot of them. Last season we lost our best goalscorer, Gonçalo Ramos, and the year before that Benfica also lost their best, Darwin Nuñez. That's why we have new strikers in our squad, and they all have quality. Sometimes, if you come to a new club, you need some time. Especially at Benfica, it's not an easy club and expectations are very high. Then, of course, you have to give the players time to adapt, to progress and develop, to show their quality. They all have it, I think we all recognize that, but next season we have to be more effective in order to win titles. Scoring at the right time is very crucial in football, and it's something we have to improve. The transfer window is very important for us to make good decisions to build the best possible squad to play next season, which will be tough. We have a lot of games, so it's difficult. We have big [international] competitions this summer, the players don't get much rest. There's a new format in the Champions League, more games to play, and we hope to compete in the Champions League. It's going to be tough and, for this situation, we have to take care to make good decisions in the transfer market.