At the end of the match with Inter Milan, in which Benfica was defeated 1-0, the Reds’ coach, Roger Schmidt, admitted that the team’s future in the competition is complicated, since it has already accumulated two defeats, and recognized that the Italian team was a fair winner, but did not let the penalty awarded to David Neres go unnoticed.
“The game was balanced in the first half, in which we had good moments. We did well in the offensive transitions and there was a penalty against Neres that was not signaled by the referee. It is a 100% penalty and not a 50% one,” Schmidt defended.
The coach also acknowledged that the team experienced “many difficulties” in the second half, both due to Inter’s merit and due to Benfica’s own mistakes.
“Sometimes we were lucky, other times it was Trubin that prevented us from conceding more goals. It is a fact that they have a lot of quality and that they had more opportunities than us in the second half, but in the first half we were unlucky.” , we could have scored and there was a penalty in our favor that did not stand out,” recalled the Benfica coach.
Schmidt also clarified that he decided to place Tomás Araújo on the right, after Bah’s injury, because he felt that the player was prepared and did not want to change the midfield to keep Aursnes further forward on the left side.
“Inter are stronger attacking on the left wing and Tomás is fast and gave me guarantees. I think it was the right choice,” he added.
After the defeat at home against Salzburg (2-0), the reds were defeated again, thanks to a goal from Frenchman Marcus Thuram, in the 62nd minute, which left them in the last position of the group, without points or goals marked.
Inter leads, with four points, tied with Real Sociedad, the Águilas’ next rival and who on Tuesday beat Salzburg 2-0, which has three.
Source: TSF
