"I would love to play in a Cup final for Benfica"

PREVIEW

Seriousness and competitive respect for the opponent are guarantees emphasized by coach José Mourinho in the preview of Chaves-Benfica, a match in the third round of the Portuguese Cup, scheduled for 7:30 pm this Friday, October 17, at the Estádio Municipal Engenheiro Manuel Branco Teixeira.

A new cycle begins here. First of all, I would like to ask you how these training days have been, despite the absences in the squad, and what kind of Chaves this is. Which team do you think you will face tomorrow [Friday]?

Those who stayed worked well. Those who arrived gradually were integrated. And in the last two days, today [Thursday] and yesterday [Wednesday], we worked on the specifics of the game against Chaves. It's a typical Portuguese Cup game, in which there is a team from a lower division, but not from a lower division of football. It is one of the strongest teams in the Second Division. It is a team that, if it were in the First Division, would certainly not be very different from the teams in the second half of the First Division table. It is a good team, which will require us to be serious. Starting with me, and being able to convey that seriousness to the players. I think it's respect for Benfica, respect for Benfica fans, the significance that the Portuguese Cup has in the club's history, and it's respect for Chaves, for their players, for their coach, who has quality, I repeat, not Second Division quality. So, we have to respect this situation and, as I said, take it seriously. If we win, things will be seen as normal. If we don't win, things will not be seen as normal. That also has to be taken into account. We have improved. We have been improving, despite the short time we have had to work. We have made good use of the games to try to improve with the games, since we cannot improve much with training. And we will do that tomorrow as well. I know that some of you [journalists] will surely have the typical question afterward about whether I will change the team a lot, or whether I will give opportunities to A, B, C, or D. I will change very little.

You just mentioned the importance of the game and the difficulties involved. You consider Chaves to be a team that plays in the Second Division but plays First Division football. What are the major risks Benfica will face in this game? If you had to choose between the Champions League and the Cup, which would you choose? You just said that not much will change now. And how did the game between the coaching staff, Aursnes, and the other guy go?

The game was good because, in the end, we ended up with a group that was unexpectedly larger than we had expected. Enzo [Barrenechea] ended up not going to the national team. Dahl ended up not going to the national team. Joshua [Wynder] was eliminated in the quarterfinals [of the U-20 World Cup] and came back. We ended up with a group that grew little by little, and we never had that situation of being completely alone, with more coaches than players. So, it ended up being a positive experience for those who didn't go, and then the actual use of players in national teams—in this case, for many of them, not being used—ends up having a positive and a negative side. The positive side is that they don't come loaded with minutes, many of them. The negative side is that, often, in national teams, you don't train much, or training is, I imagine, much more focused on specific tactics for a game, and those who don't play don't usually train much. So, there is always that little bit of doubt, but I would say: yesterday [Wednesday] and today [Thursday], we ended up having the conditions to work well, and I think we are prepared. The risk is not playing well. The risk is that Chaves will play a fantastic game, which is normal, and I think that's exactly what will happen. The risk is that we don't, and obviously our preparation for the game has been geared towards trying to avoid that. We've spent a lot of time analyzing Chaves, because we've had all this time to analyze Chaves. We've analyzed Chaves and tried to work around their strengths and weaknesses. We have to play well. If we don't play well, we'll have difficulties.

Going back to 2004: you lost the Portuguese Cup final and, a few days later, became European champions. Now, 21 years later, how do you feel about returning to the Portuguese Cup?

Look, I never... I was about to lie. I was going to say that I was never eliminated from the Portuguese Cup, I was about to lie, because I was eliminated from the Portuguese Cup with União de Leiria. Then, in the following two seasons, I went to two finals. I won one, lost the other, and I would love to go back. Benfica has a fantastic history with the Portuguese Cup. It has one Cup less than it should have, because last season's Cup, as we all know, should have been Benfica's, and it wasn't for reasons that are a little strange to what is normally the essence of the game. But Benfica has a Cup tradition, I myself grew up going to Jamor. First, I was lucky enough to go to Jamor when I was little to watch my father play, and then I went to Jamor countless times. With my father as coach, I saw Benfica-Sporting once, and then countless times, I saw Benfica-FC Porto, I saw Vitória de Setúbal-Benfica... Jamor continues to be something that, as they say in England, is under the skin. It's something that still moves me. Having never played in a Portuguese Cup final as Benfica's coach, it was something I really wanted to do. And the question your colleague asked earlier about what was more important, the Champions League or the Portuguese Cup: today, the Portuguese Cup is much more important than the Champions League. Then, on Saturday, the Champions League will become more important than the Portuguese Cup, but from today until tomorrow [Friday], at the end of the game, the Portuguese Cup is more important.

Are there strange motives in Portuguese football?

I don't know, sometimes referees make mistakes, and sometimes they make mistakes that decisively affect the outcome of the game. I always try to look at it, as I said, from the coach's perspective: coaches make mistakes, players make mistakes, referees make mistakes, and when, unfortunately, those mistakes translate into significant changes to the outcome of the game, it gets a little more media attention, it's a little harder to accept, but I look at it through the eyes of a coach and not through the eyes of a commentator or a manager.

I'll start by asking you about Benfica's goalkeeper. You said there would be very few changes, so I'm wondering if there will be a swap between Trubin and Samuel Soares. And, if I may, I'd also like to ask you about Benfica's attack. In the last two games, Benfica didn't score any goals, lost to Chelsea, and tied with FC Porto. In José Mourinho's five games, they only scored six goals, which I believe is less than José Mourinho would have liked. How will you solve Benfica's attacking problem?

Samuel will play tomorrow [Friday], but this isn't a competition for Trubin and a competition for Samuel. Not at all. Obviously, I hope to win, and then I hope to play either with Atlético in Tapadinha or with Felgueiras in Felgueiras... I can't guarantee that Samuel will play in the next Portuguese Cup game. It's a decision regarding this game. Samuel is a great goalkeeper, but in my five games here, he hasn't played a single minute. I've always gone for stability, not only with him but also with other players, and he's never played. He works hard, he deserves to play, he stayed here with us; Trubin played two games in the last 15 days, Samuel didn't play. We have complete confidence in him, and yes, Samuel will play tomorrow. In the last two games, we didn't score any goals, but we could have. We didn't have 10/15/20 scoring opportunities, but we had enough, in games of this difficulty and in games of this magnitude, to score and win (or, at least against Chelsea, to score and draw). In the other games, the goals scored were obviously not enough, but we scored three against Desportivo das Aves [AVS] and two against Gil Vicente, which allowed us to win those games. And improving our numbers has to do with the work we have to do; it has to do with introducing some new ideas; it has to do with the players' confidence levels, which obviously have to improve as well; and we have to start from a base of stability, and that base of stability also means being well organized defensively, the team feeling comfortable, the team never feeling dominated, because—say what you will, say what you will, I have 1,200 games under my belt, being criticized by someone who hasn't played a single minute, I don't think it's dramatic, but my idea prevails—we have never been dominated in any game so far. We were never dominated in any game. It's one thing to play defensively and be dominated and have to defend a lot, and another thing to play very well organized, with great awareness, with great calm, and never be dominated. And we were never dominated. Not by Chelsea, nor by FC Porto.

First, I ask you: Sudakov—who came back early from the national team, injured—can you count on him for this game, or possibly only for the Champions League? On the other hand, I ask you to try to remember: my colleague has already mentioned the 2004 Portuguese Cup final, the player [Simão Sabrosa] who scored Benfica's goal and defeated FC Porto now sits next to you on the bench. Have you talked to him about that game? Do you remember that game?

No, we didn't talk about that game, but... When Simão Sabrosa went to Barcelona, I was the one waiting for him at the airport. He was a talented young Portuguese soccer player who was going to a European giant, and there was a Portuguese guy waiting for him, who wasn't important in the club's structure, but was a Portuguese guy who was in the structure, who could give him a hand from day one, who had already been at the club for two years, so when he arrived, I had already been at the club for two years. I created with him—I don't want to say a father-son relationship, because I'm not that old, and he's not that young—but almost an older brother relationship. So my relationship with Simão is a very affectionate one because that's where it started. We haven't talked about that game yet because I have a very important characteristic: I remember the good moments much more than the bad ones [smiles]. So I've never talked to him about that situation. But of course I remember it. I also remember walking down the stairs as the loser and... Maybe they just wanted to be nice, but I clearly remember many Benfica fans saying to me, “Come on, come on, now you're going to be European champions.” I don't know if they wanted to be nice, but I have this perfect memory of coming off the field as the loser and, instead of being almost taunted or humiliated by the fans of the winning team in that game and that final, I was positively encouraged.

During the last break, Benfica played—but you weren't the coach—on a Friday. Bruno Lage said at the time that he would have preferred to play on Saturday. In your case, do you understand and prefer to play this Friday, or would it be preferable, in terms of preparation for the game, to play on Saturday?

Here, there's only one mistake: we should have played Águias da Musgueira, Oriental, Cultural da Pontinha... We had so many options, and we ended up playing Chaves, and we were lucky not to have played Ourense, which is even further away. That's the only problem. Obviously, it has to be Friday [October 17]. We'll arrive in Lisbon early Saturday morning [October 18]. We'll have to travel on Monday [October 20] and play on Tuesday [October 21]. Obviously, I'd rather lose a day in terms of the national team players' arrival and gain a day in preparation for the next game. I would even say that most of the players who will start the game tomorrow [Friday] are not people who have just arrived. You have to make choices. I have no problem saying: [Richard] Ríos won't play tomorrow. He's the last to arrive, he doesn't train with the team. You have to make choices, but obviously I'd rather play on Friday and Tuesday than play on Saturday and Tuesday.