"There are no games or defeats that are easy to accept"

POST-MATCH

At the end of a match in which “everything happened”, Bruno Lage pointed out that the lack of numbers accentuated the difficulties caused by the weather and the long interruption in Benfica's 1-4 to Chelsea after extra time in the last 16 of the Club World Cup.

GAME ANALYSIS

"Only our players, our team, with everything we talked about and prepared in stoppage time, believed that we could score. And we did. We knew that Chelsea was going to sit back, with Pedro Neto in a line of five [defenders], and we had to provoke all those kinds of movements. Having people open up, looking for movement inside the box, anything from free kicks and corners, looking for Nico's [Otamendi] movement, either for the first ball or to push for the second to give us a chance of scoring. It was in one of those moves that we managed to equalize. Then, unfortunately, there was something we couldn't control: the start of extra time with the sending off in the first minute. It's made more difficult by the way the game went, by the time the game was played, by the long stoppage, but even so, playing with 10, I think we have three or four very good transitions, with the team knowing how to take the game from one corridor to the other and then pass and get to the opponent's goal with danger. We didn't manage to score, and, from the moment Chelsea scored [1-2], everything became more difficult. In the first half in particular, and compared to the Bayern game, we lacked more prolonged possession because that was our objective. A very similar positioning, and we had to be able to run the ball from one corridor to the other, and sometimes we didn't manage it. We lost some of the ball in the middle, or sometimes we went back to the same corridor with space in the opposite corridor, and we didn't do as well as we did against Bayern Munich."

CLUB WORLD CUP BALANCE

"We reached the last 16 of the World Cup with a good performance. In the first round we met the objectives we had set ourselves, which was to move on, and today [Saturday] we felt that we had an opponent who is very difficult, who has won a European competition, is 4th in the Premier League, has players of enormous quality, very strong, especially the front men. They're also very mature when it comes to controlling the game on the ball. We knew that, we tried to fight with our weapons. When I look at this World Cup, I also look at what we've done throughout the season: the last 16 of the World Cup, the last 16 of the Champions League, we lost the Portuguese Cup as you all know, we played in the league until the last matchday, we won the League Cup. In monetary terms, I think it's also something that we, as a coaching staff and structure, have to think about, because it really is a huge amount for the club. For 95% of clubs it was a reasonable job, but for Benfica it's not enough because the main objective, which is to win the league, was clearly missing. Not everything that was done was wrong, there were things that were very good. Looking ahead to next season, there are things that clearly need to change. Some radically, others to improve our quality of play."

ÁLVARO CARRERAS AND RENATO SANCHES

"Álvaro [Carreras] didn't play because I think Samuel [Dahl] is better than Álvaro at the moment. I always make decisions like that, that's how we did this World Cup, always looking at the players. That's how I've always made my decisions throughout the season, looking at each player at every moment, and Samuel, because of the game he played against Bayern Munich, clearly deserved my trust to play. Only a committed player like Samuel could play the way he did, playing against the player he had in front of him, who really is a young man of enormous quantity. Renato is the same reason why I didn't use Tino [Florentino] in the Bayern game. So there's no problem with Renato. There was no problem with Tino either, but there was a risk. As I've said throughout this World Cup, I wouldn't put anyone at risk."

THE POSITION THAT ISN'T IMPORTANT AND THE AGGRESSIVENESS THAT HAS TO CHANGE

"[Are you more or less strengthened by these round of 16?] There's always this concern about my position... My position isn't important. As I tell you, it's with great pleasure that I serve Benfica. If, by winning a game, I leave more or less strengthened, that's not how I analyze my work. That's what counts for me, it's the basis, understanding how I prepare the games, analyze the games and prepare the team. That's how I see myself as a coach. And it's not this game, whether I win this game or not, whether I come out stronger or not. That's our thing.  [What needs to change radically?] One thing I've told you, I've already shared with you, even today it was noticeable, there's an aggressiveness that doesn't come naturally to us, that we have to show more of in our games. We always have to be aggressive, we have to know how to stop transitions with a few fouls, and we have to have a side of experience. And I have no problem saying, there's an opposing player who made 4 or 5 fouls, didn't get a yellow card and managed, for various reasons, to get Prestianni sent off."

ATYPICAL PREPARATION WITH 2025/26 IN MIND

"[Is this a defeat that hurts as much as the most painful ones or, on the other hand, does it hurt a little less because it will allow Benfica to prepare for next season in a slightly more normal way?] No, that part of normal is already out of the way. There's no point, because we have to give these players at least 15 days to recover, and then we'll have two and a half weeks to prepare for the Super Cup. What's normal is at least 4–5 weeks, so it's not normal anymore. But we have to be able to reinvent ourselves and realize that this is a very important moment in the season because, as well as the Super Cup, there are the Champions League qualifiers and the start of the league season. So Benfica have to go full throttle in that sense. [More or less painful defeat?] No, it hurts a lot. Because we came with the mentality of doing well. We got through the first round, lost to Chelsea, a team that won a European competition [Conference League] and finished 4th in the Premier League. So there are no games or defeats that are easy to accept."