“Our ambition is to keep growing as a team”

PREVIEW

In his preview of Benfica-Gil Vicente this Saturday, September 28, Bruno Lage guaranteed that the game from matchday 7 of the Liga Betclic represents an excellent opportunity to continue the team's growth, which approaches this match with the utmost concentration and commitment.

A return to home games against a Benfica side on the back of three consecutive wins. How does your team feel and what do you expect from Gil Vicente?

It's always extra motivation for us to play at the Estádio da Luz, in front of our fans. I expect the team to be as dynamic and focused as ever, and an opponent in the image of their coach, with positive football and a lot of attacking verve. It's a team that works as a whole, with many players of enormous quality, especially the front men. As such, we have to be one hundred percent focused and have one hundred percent commitment for tomorrow's game [Saturday, September 28].

You've won all three of your games as Benfica coach in this new phase and, in search of perfection - coaches usually look for perfection - what are you looking for most at this stage? Do you want Benfica to be more consistent defensively or even more attacking? From an attacking point of view, are you considering using Pavlidis and Arthur Cabral at the same time in this game, or not?

Firstly, we won, because I didn't win alone. What I want - and it's been a key word since our first day here with the team - is the Club's culture and what the Club's motto is, so it's been a very strong word. The best thing we have is to work as a team, so it's not me who has won, it's not any particular player, it's the team, which has to constantly live by that, and I've talked a lot about that, about what the club culture is, which is the strongest thing we can have, and I further reinforce what I said in the last game, which is the talent at the service of the team and what each one of them can do right now to help the team. I'd like to take this opportunity to appreciate even more the initiative taken by the captain, Nico [Otamendi], to arrange a meeting outside Seixal with the players. This is something that we all have to build together, and that comes from the base of the Club, from the Club's culture, and I and the people around the players want to pass this on every day. The second question... I want a more aggressive team, what we've been talking about a lot, more aggressive in the final third, in the search for space, in the search for more finishing situations, because I believe that if we create more finishing situations, we can score goals, but create more quality, so we've been working, I've been working a lot with the forwards, with the wingers, on how to get to the final third, what space the opponent can offer us, what kind of crosses we want, what kind of moves I want from the forwards, both collectively and individually, and that's been a very important focus. Then defending is very easy. It's running, as the great master Jaime Graça used to say. It's running, everyone behind the ball line, and they know that, with me, everyone has the responsibility of defending and coming out aggressively to win the ball back.

Three games, three wins, a team playing more attractive and positive football, and more united. Using an expression you used last week, do you feel that you already have a team playing the Benfica way?

The most important thing is that we work hard every day to achieve this. It's a Benfica team, because I know what the fans like. I also grew up here, I've been in practically every youth team, the B team, I've been in the A team and that's how I identify myself. Our ambition is to keep growing as a team. We've been creating more goals in these three games, and we want to keep that up. We haven't done anything special yet, we've only won three games and that's why I'm telling you: maximum commitment for tomorrow's game [Saturday, September 28], because they're a very competent opponent and we have to be focused on what we control. And what we control is only our work and our task for tomorrow's game [Saturday, September 28].

You've just said that, in the defensive process, you want everyone to run backwards to help defend. In that sense, I'd like to ask you about Di María's role in the team. In the last game, against Boavista, one of the central midfielders played down the right flank, I think it was Aursnes. With Red Star, I think it was Kökcü who played that role a bit too. Then, at some point, he changed the wingers, putting Aktürkoğlu in to close down on the right, at a time when Kaboré was already playing. My question is precisely about Di María. Are you prepared to do without that defensive efficiency, with everyone running backwards and having a player who, admittedly, isn't going to fulfill that role, because he can't, or because it's simply your choice not to? To what extent does this affect the commitment of the rest of the team to protect Di María from this possible defensive gap?

I disagree with your analysis of the last game. I never saw Aursnes behind Di María, I always saw Aursnes pressing forward, even today [Friday, September 27] we showed images of that. Aursnes, a midfielder joining the striker to press forward, and Di María, closing down spaces and recovering balls in interior areas, so I disagree with that, because the work, in team terms, was very important. It was about not letting the opposition play inside us, a lot of people behind the ball, ready to press. What I want for Di María is what I want for everyone, even the work of the forwards, is for the team to be competent and for everyone to be responsible for defending, that's the first point. In the Red Star game, I've already explained about that game, it's about sensing the moment of the game and who can help us, and looking at the characteristics of the players. Benfica, for some years now, and I'm talking about myself, even at my time, didn't have a winger with as much defensive commitment as Kerem [Aktürkoğlu], so we have to know how to use that when necessary. At that time, we had someone who also played that role very well on the left, Cervi, so it's a bit about looking at the players' characteristics. Now, what I want is for the team as a whole to work, and the team has worked in the last three games, and I've been passing that message on to the players.

When you were presented, you praised the squad and, this week, President Rui Costa said that it could have been built by you. Do you agree with that statement? Do you think it's the most capable squad to be champions? And in this game, can it get stronger with Bah?

TI've had a long relationship with the President, both as training director, then as sporting director and now as President. If there's one person who knows how I like the squad, it's him. In structural terms, I like to have the squad like this. Three goalkeepers, two competitive players for each position, because there has to be competition between them. I always want everyone to be ready, prepared and nobody to live off what they do, but to contribute daily to the growth of the team. And three strikers with different profiles, as we have. One who's more of a link player, another with a strong deep-lying attack and one who's more of an area player, who knows how to play with crosses and that kind of space. EThat foundation is immediately in place, because I really enjoy working with a squad like that. Then we've had several players come in and each of them needs time to adapt to the country, to the club culture we were talking about earlier, to the way we play and to the way we train. And in that respect, it's up to me to get the best out of each one and help them grow, both individually and collectively. AAt the end of the day, we look at the squad, and we have a lot of players who already know it and have adapted well, and others who are still getting to know their surroundings, but I believe we have the capacity to continue to grow and be a competitive team. That was our ambition from day one: to look at the team, make it grow and be competitive. Right now, what we have to do is continue on our path. We can't look at anything. Our ambition and our commitment are to what we have to do tomorrow [Saturday, September 28] and to start with safe steps, so that we can then take other kinds of steps. For now, our commitment has to be this, what we control at every moment. As for Bah, he's trained, and he's called up for the game.

I said last week that there was no time to change the chip. I'd like to ask you if the coaching staff has time to change that, given that there's an important Champions League game coming up with Atlético de Madrid, and there will certainly be a need for some rotation among the players, and also if this need to rotate some positions and players hinders your goal of getting the team to play the way you want it to, or if, on the other hand, having this many games helps you in that process?

There are several issues to take into account in your question. As a technical team, not just me, I'm the head coach of a large technical team, and we always work three games ahead, which means that at the moment, there are people who are already analyzing Nacional, others preparing for Atlético de Madrid, and I, with my assistants, our focus and our concentration  – because that's the only way the players will feel it too –, it's tomorrow's game [Saturday, September 28], and that's what we're focused on, and it's tomorrow's game [Saturday, September 28] that we have to be focused on. There's been no chip change for anything, it's the same here. There's no chip change and our commitment has to be 100 percent focused on what we have to do tomorrow [Saturday, September 28].

The game against Boavista was marked by the death of a Benfica supporter [Telmo Faria] on his way to the game. How did the group feel about that?

After a game and having been given the day off, we woke up feeling like we'd done our job, but there was a different flavor to our victory, because my main thought was that our fans almost give their lives, and some even lose their lives, to support us. That's not to make this difficult time nothing, but our players have to feel that. People make a lot of sacrifices to support us in everything and there are some who, unfortunately, make the biggest sacrifice of all. We just have to, at every moment, when we are called upon, do what we have to do, which is to play with maximum concentration, ambition, to play for ourselves as a team and to play for the fans, who, in the end, are the soul of the club. I'd like to take this opportunity to send my condolences to the family and the Benfica fans, because I believe this is news that has left a bittersweet taste about our victory.