“Continuing the work and the winning momentum”

PREVIEW

Bruno Lage's total focus on the team's quest for victory was the guarantee given in the preview of the Red Star-Benfica match on matchday 1 of the Champions League league stage, scheduled for 5:45 pm. on Thursday, September 19, at the Rajko Mitic Stadium in Belgrade. 

This is a game with unique characteristics. Two former European champions, and a match that promises to be hotly contested, in a fervent atmosphere, so well known for being experienced in this way off the pitch. Could a good showing have an important impact on the team's growth?

Regarding the atmosphere, I think that for us as a team, it's knowing that our people are being heard. That's going to be important for us. We traveled with the fans, and that's the support we're hoping for. That tomorrow [Thursday, September 19], in this atmosphere, our people make themselves heard and support us. What will make the team grow are the games, the number of training sessions and the work, because things don't happen without time, and that time has to give them training sessions, consolidation of behavior and, of course, the momentum of winning is very important. It's with this spirit that the team will face tomorrow's game [Thursday, September 19]. Not just looking back at the win in the last game and the good display, but continuing that work, especially with this winning momentum. The most important thing is to be comfortable, to play well and win. That the team has an ambitious strategy and the desire to win. What our fans want is to see a team and be proud of it.

Do you consider this game to be decisive for what may be the near future of the Benfica team, of Bruno Lage himself, of the Benfica Board and of Rui Costa, due to the whole atmosphere that led up to the coach's replacement? Does this game have that dramatic weight?

I don't have time to waste on these issues. My time is so short, it's about leaving a game, preparing for the next game, and preparing the team to win. What I want, and the ambition I have, is for the team to have winning momentum, to keep going, to go for it, and to look for a winning culture that continues the work we just started a week ago. That's my concern. I don't have time to waste on that, the team doesn't have time to waste on that. The team has to focus on what they have to do tomorrow [Thursday] on the pitch.

Taking the game against Santa Clara as a point of reference, what changes are you going to make to the team? Are you going to reinforce the central midfield area, or do you intend to do as you did against the Azoreans?

There's a difference from the start, at least in terms of what we've prepared, looked at and seen from our opponents in recent games. Santa Clara with a line of three, and this team [Red Star] with a traditional line of four. From there, the team's defensive dynamic is different. Then it's about understanding - and we've had time to understand - how the opponent presses, how they press at home, what kind of spaces they offer us, and having the intelligence, with the ball, to look for those spaces to create goal-scoring opportunities. That's how we always look at matches. We look at the opponent and, depending on our behavior and dynamics, and also on the characteristics of our players, we choose the best strategy for the game, both defensively and in attack. I think we've done a good job over the last three days of giving the players all the information they need to be prepared for a good game.

We saw that the big news in this squad was the presence of Aursnes. I said at the last press conference [ahead of the game against Santa Clara] that I hadn't spoken to the player yet. Can you now tell us what the plan is for this athlete? Do you see him more as a midfielder, a winger? Is he likely to play tomorrow [Thursday]?

No, at the moment I'm not going to reveal anything about our conversations, because I think it's up to him to show on the pitch, as well as the team. It's up to the team to show on the pitch what path they want to take in the future. These are excellent opportunities for us, at any time, to prove what we are, and you prove it on the pitch, not with promises, so I'm already making my demands of myself, as well as challenging the players. [Aursnes] doesn't have a lot of training time, he took part today with little training time, but we're really pleased that he's a solution for tomorrow [Thursday].

You've already said that you're only focused on the game, but, picking up on what you said a few days ago at a press conference [before the game against Santa Clara], has it been easy to shield the players from the politics surrounding this match?

I think it's been easy! We're focused on what it is... directing our attention to what the job is. And the athletes have that experience. They understand what they have to do, what focusing on work is. That's what happens to us when, in matches, things aren't going well, we have to direct our attention to what our guidelines are as a team. It's the same here. We have to be very focused on what's happening on a day-to-day basis. In training, in the analysis we make of training, in the information we pass on to the players, the quality time we spend with them [players]. And when I say quality time, it's essentially creating dynamics, creating behavior, and our focus has essentially been on that. After the Santa Clara game, we mentioned the behaviors that were very good, and one of them was seeing the team with a huge ambition to try and do things and win. That's what we want to continue over time. To look at the team and see that, on the pitch, they represent what our club is all about. The ambition of the team that won the last game must be present in this challenge. That's what I want to see.

Considering his first spell at Benfica, when the team was in the Champions League, in some situations he ended up rotating the team, rotating the squad. For this new edition of the Champions League, and in a new format, how do you plan Benfica's performance in the Champions League, with the qualification taking place differently?

We never rotated the squad. Eventually, I remember, in the first game, there were two or three changes that we had to make depending on the moment. Normally, these circumstances happen when there are two days between games. Here, the team had time to recover, four days between games. Tomorrow's eleven [Thursday] will be based on that. Those players who are best at the moment, depending on their characteristics, depending on our strategy, making them comfortable on the pitch, for what is most important, which is their performance and what they can offer the team. The players have accepted our way of working, we've extended some things over time. I'm very confident that the team will grow game by game.