Benfica coach Roger Schmidt said on Monday that Benfica will play to beat Juventus on Tuesday, even though they only need a draw to advance in the Football Champions League.
At a press conference in Seixal, the coach acknowledged that “everyone knows” that the ‘incarnated’ need “a single point” to qualify for the round of 16 -if Paris Saint-Germain scores at the reception against Maccabi Haifa- , but warned that Benfica does not know how to play for a result other than victory.
“We are not a team that knows how to play to a draw. When we enter the field our goal is to win the game and tomorrow [terça-feira] It does not matter. We have to believe in ourselves, be brave and take advantage of the home factor,” said Roger Schmidt, prior to the match with the Italians.
In the first round, Benfica even won in Turin, 2-1, but Schmidt made sure to remember that “no two games are the same” and that, despite the victory, “it was a difficult game”, where his team He had “some problems” before finding “the rhythm” that would allow him to add the three points.
On Tuesday, at the Estádio da Luz, “it’s a new game” and the ‘incarnated’ coach recalled that, despite the fact that Benfica has “a small advantage”, “everything is possible for the four teams in the group”.
“All the teams can still qualify and ‘Juve’ is ‘Juve’. It’s a great club, with great players, a coach with a lot of experience. They also want to continue in the Champions League after the group stage, so there’s to hope for the best.” ‘Juve’ and be prepared to play at our best level,” Schmidt recalled.
In this sense, the coach downplayed the rival’s possible bad moment, recalling that “the situation is very clear” for the team led by Massimiliano Allegri, which “needs two wins to qualify for the round of 16”, and that “it is always to be at the best level in these decisive matches”.
“We expect the best ‘Juve’ and we have to be prepared for that. We do not have any weakness of our rival. We have to play at our best level to qualify for these two games”, he insisted.
Before Schmidt, Odysseas Vlachodimos also assumed that the ‘incarnated’ squad knows “the quality of the opposing team”, that “it has a lot of experience and has many quality players”, but assured that “it will give its best to win”.
“We are going to try to give our best to face them, but we also have a lot of confidence because we are in a very good situation and tomorrow [terça-feira] We go to the game like any other game, to win”, the goalkeeper assumed.
Benfica hosts Juventus on Tuesday, in a match from the fifth day of Group H of the Champions League, starting at 8:00 p.m., at Estádio da Luz, in Lisbon, and refereed by Serbian Srdan Jovanovic .
The group led by Roger Schmidt occupies second place in the group, with eight points, the same as the leader, Paris Saint-Germain.
Juventus, for its part, is third in the group, with just three points, as many as Maccabi Haifa, and is obliged to win to continue in the fight for classification, although it does not depend only on itself to advance.
Source: TSF
