Bah injury, Palhinha and pitch: what Marco Silva said after Benfica win | OneFootball

After the big win over Marítimo (3-0) in Madeira, where they secured their third victory in the Liga Portugal Betclic as Benfica came through the fifth round (the Eagles have one game in hand), coach Marco Silva reviewed the match in a press conference. See everything the Benfica manager had to say.

"We started very well, doing what we had planned. It has to be said: a horrible pitch to play football on, where it is almost impossible to play. First of all, congratulations to our fans. A great atmosphere, a good atmosphere in the stadium too, supporting the Marítimo team. A stadium with the right atmosphere, backing the home team. A stand on our left-hand side fully supporting Benfica, and you could really feel it. Unfortunately, on a pitch where you cannot play football. In this case, it has nothing to do with Marítimo, it has to do with the League or the Federation — excuse my ignorance in this case — but it has to be said that we are right at the start of the season and playing football in these stadiums does no good for Portuguese football if we want to defend it. It has nothing to do with Benfica, or any other club, or Marítimo; it is a general issue. I think it is important to point that out and, since we won the game, it does not sound like an excuse, so it is important for us to look at that if we want our league to reach another level and provide the conditions for players to play the football they are capable of playing, on both sides. And in that respect, it has to be highlighted. It was a very good start from our team, clearly the kind of start we wanted, controlling the game, creating difficulties for our opponent. We scored a goal, and I think we were very good until Bah's injury. Until Bah's injury, very, very good. Then, yes, they changed their press a little. The two up front started to have a one-man advantage, marking our number 6 more closely, João [Palhinha] in this case, and we simply had to move the ball more, as quickly as possible, on a difficult pitch. We started breaking up the game too much, contesting too many balls, losing some in our build-up, which was unnecessary because the pressure was almost non-existent. And honestly, more through our own fault, we started losing some balls and allowing some transitions. I do not remember Marítimo having a single clear scoring chance in the whole game, that is the truth. Apart from the free-kick in the second half, from the side, after a foul by Tomás, there was no scoring chance, and even that was not really a chance, just a dangerous situation. At half-time we talked a bit, we made some adjustments. I think the game practically ended when we made the other change with Schjelderup. He had a huge impact, brought security on the right flank and from then on we stabilised the team much more. We also changed Leandro's position a little in the second half to give us a bit more balance alongside João. And from then on I think the team clearly took control of the game. The second goal helped with that and then, from there, we controlled the game and scored another excellent goal through Prestianni."

Bah's injury and Kaminski coming on

"It had to do with the strategic plan we had. As you know, we chose to give Banjaqui some game time, as he was also coming back from injury, and we wanted him to be playing this afternoon because we are going to need him at his best level. And we had two options: keep Rafa playing inside from a strategic point of view and give the flank to a more attacking full-back. In this case, Kaminski has trained there a few times as well, because it is a position he plays for the Polish national team in a back three, and we have already seen him do it several times. We were practically always building with three, playing with three, to give him the flank and keep Rafa inside. That was the decision we made. Or we could have gone for a slightly more conservative option, with a centre-back who can play at right-back, but we would have changed what our strategic plan for the game was and we chose not to do that, which is why we brought on Kaminski."

Does João Palhinha free up Barreiro?

"No, it has nothing to do with that. Nothing to do with it. I understand your question, but it has nothing to do with it. Anyone who analyses it, one thing is that he scored goals, that is one thing. But if you look at all Benfica's games so far, see how many times Leandro was in the box. He ended up scoring two goals... What influence does João have on a set-piece goal from a corner where Leandro scores the second? What influence does João have on that? Absolutely none. And as for Leandro's positioning, I can guarantee you it did not change by a single centimetre from what it had been with Enzo there as well. In fact, in the second half we even dropped Leandro a little deeper to act almost as a second midfielder alongside João, because we felt we had to calm our game down. I understand the question, but in my opinion one thing has nothing to do with the other."

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