After the farewell, the mistakes that led to Bruno Lage leaving Benfica | OneFootball

Bruno Lage’s departure from Benfica is still fresh, and there has been no shortage of investigations into what went wrong and which mistakes led the Setúbal native to this outcome. One of them, according to what has been found, was his involvement, albeit indirectly, in the Club of Light’s elections, by making certain responses to some candidates.

And it was precisely on the topic of the electoral race that the 49-year-old coach sealed his fate at Luz. Rui Costa, the current President of the Eagles, played all his cards in this transfer window in order to secure some electoral advantage, and Bruno Lage, instead of focusing on the team, publicly revealed his support for the Benfica official, something he did during the preview of the match against Santa Clara.

Another of the ‘sins’ that led to the end of Bruno Lage’s tenure was the handling of the Kerem Akturkoglu case. The Turk—who has since been transferred to Fenerbahçe—started the season as a starter, in the Super Cup against Sporting. After that, he ‘disappeared’ from the squad for the first match against Nice, and the story continued like that, without anyone really understanding what the Setúbal native wanted from the winger.

Another detail that fans didn’t like was the uncertainty in the Eagles’ defense. Sometimes Anatoliy Trubin was the starter, other times the choice fell to Samuel Soares. The same happened with the defensive quartet, with special focus on Tomás Araújo. Sometimes, the number 44 was a starter; in other situations, he didn’t even come off the bench.

And the final straw: the lack of investment in youth development. In contrast to his arrival in 2018/19, when the Setúbal native clearly bet on homegrown talent, the same did not happen in this second spell. The most glaring ‘mistake’ was João Veloso; the young midfielder showed good signs in the Eusébio Cup, but hasn’t played a single minute since July 26.

This article was translated into English by Artificial Intelligence. You can read the original version in 🇵🇹 here.