Benfica respond to António Silva's World Cup omission | OneFootball

Benfica responded last Tuesday to António Silva’s absence from Portugal’s squad list for the 2026 World Cup. Hours after Roberto Martínez announced the players selected for the National Team, the Lisbon club posted a message of support for the centre-back on social media.

“One of us,” the Eagles wrote, accompanying the phrase with a photograph of the Portuguese international wearing the club’s red colours. Before that post, Benfica had already highlighted the call-ups of several players to their respective national teams. Dodi Lukebakio, Sidny Cabral, Amar Dedic and Tomás Araújo were all featured after being called up by Belgium, Cape Verde, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Portugal, respectively.

It should be remembered that Roberto Martínez explained António Silva’s absence from the final squad, while also assuring that the Benfica centre-back will be the first name called up if there is any physical problem among the defenders currently selected to represent Portugal at the 2026 World Cup.

“António Silva? We have five centre-backs, we worked with them and, in March, we had to choose. We were expecting different opponents, and the choice fell on Tomás Araújo,” Martínez explained when asked about some of the decisions regarding the selected squad.

In the 2025/26 season, playing for Benfica, António Silva – valued at 28 million euros – made 41 official appearances: 25 in Liga Portugal Betclic, 10 in the Champions League, four in the Portuguese Cup, one in the League Cup and one in the Super Cup. In the 3,118 minutes he was on the pitch, the defender scored one goal and recorded one assist.

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