Betrayal? Mário Branco on Bruno Lage’s Benfica exit: dishonesty | OneFootball

Mário Branco completely denies the notion that he betrayed Bruno Lage in the process that saw José Mourinho replace the former head coach of Benfica. The general director of Benfica's football department gave an interview to the newspaper Record, where he discussed the entire story about the Portuguese coach's departure from the Clube da Luz - he also talked about the new signings and the current coach of the Eagles.

Mário Branco began by commenting on the date of the match against Santa Clara: "I think that was a non-issue. Honestly, when Bruno Lage spoke about the situation, he gave his opinion. At the time, he said it was a methodological error, which I respect. It's his opinion that I don't agree with, but the truth is that it was a situation that was blown out of proportion in a completely different way, neither by me nor by Bruno Lage. It was third parties in the media circle who ended up creating a problem that didn't exist."

"Bruno Lage, initially, wanted to play on Saturday. We explained why playing on Friday was important because it also means being a club of principles (...) And the truth is that you probably remember that between August 31 and September 12, which was the Santa Clara game, no one ever talked about the scheduling of the Santa Clara game," Mário Branco explained next.

The Director of football at Benfica further added: "Then, a narrative was created, with the departure of the previous coach and the arrival of José Mourinho, that Mário Branco had this Machiavellian idea of not scheduling the game for Saturday but for Friday, to harm whoever, and that obviously makes no sense. It's just intellectual dishonesty from the people who talked about it, not Bruno Lage."

Finally, he commented on the notion of a 'betrayal' of Bruno Lage and their current relationship: "Unless I'm mistaken, that expression came from a person, who I don't know if they advise Bruno Lage or have some sort of agreement with Bruno Lage, who said that directly (...) what matters to me is my professional conscience. And the truth is that betrayal is not a word that is part of my vocabulary (...) I don't understand what the logic would be of not hiring Mourinho. And for me to think about not hiring him because someone would say I betrayed Bruno Lage would obviously be a mistake, especially since I had a very good professional relationship with Bruno Lage. We took care to talk on the day he came here to say goodbye. We talked openly, we discussed the situation of the game with Santa Clara. We left, in my opinion, at peace with each other."

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