Roger Schmidt assured on Friday that the pressure to win the title “is not increasing, but remains”. The Benfica coach is aware of the difficulties until the end of the season. “There are still 13 games for us to become champions, but we are the only team that has everything in hand and we want to keep it that way,” he said, desiring to “please the fans” with the capture of the title which, he assumes, “requires a lot of points”.
Ahead of tonight’s game (8.30pm, SportTV) in Vizela, Roger Schmidt says Benfica must “find solutions” to overcome a team that “believes a lot in itself, has individual quality and is fast”. Still, he makes sure his team is “prepared for anything”. “We have already shown that if the history of the game does not fail us, we always believe in ourselves and if we have to score at the end, we score. We are confident,” he underlined.
As for the eleven that will be used in Vizela, the German coach said he was still “thinking about him”, but admitted that David Neres’s participation in the team against Boavista “was a good idea”, not in the last place because the red wines are not scored yet. “This season we scored a lot, but we also missed too many chances. We want to improve,” he added, devaluing the fact that Neres and Gonçalo Guedes were substitutes in the last game: “We have several options But we also need to have a strong bench.”
One player in the spotlight is Norway’s Aursnes, who is highly praised by Schmidt. “He is a complete player, tactically intelligent, who brings balance to the team and is perhaps the one who runs the most in the team. There are 13 or 14 kilometers per game, regardless of where he plays,” he said, guaranteeing that ” this type of player is always essential in any team”.
Roger Schmidt also said this week’s news of legal proceedings involving Benfica had no impact on the players and denied that he felt increasing pressure to become national football champions.
“It doesn’t affect the group. I see the group is very focused on training, with a very positive spirit. It’s backstage stuff, old stories and honestly I don’t know about that, it’s not my focus. See no effect on the players because of this news”he claimed.
Source: DN
