Bruno Lage and Rui Costa set new goals at Benfica | OneFootball

After qualifying for the Champions League, Bruno Lage and Rui Costa have already defined the next step to be taken in the million-dollar competition. In this Glorioso 1904 Exclusive, our newspaper, together with a close source, has learned that both the Setúbal native and the President want Benfica to reach the round of 16 of the competition and already have the squad list ready.

Reaching the league phase of the Champions League was not an easy path for Benfica. After securing second place in Liga Portugal Betclic in 2024/25, the Eagles had to overcome Nice in the third qualifying round, and Fenerbahçe in the play-off to access the million-dollar competition.

However, qualifying for the main draw of the competition placed Benfica in pot 2. In the draw, the Reds were grouped with Qarabag, Chelsea, Newcastle, Bayer Leverkusen, Ajax, Napoli, Juventus, and Real Madrid, teams they will face once each in the league phase of the Champions League.

Now, the objective set by Benfica’s Board is, at the very least, to match what was achieved last season, that is: qualification for the round of 16. The Eagles are aware that it will not be an easy task, and do not ignore that factor, but they believe that the squad assembled during the summer transfer window allows Bruno Lage to have clear intentions of advancing to the next stage of the competition.

Achieving this goal would guarantee a nice financial boost, as well as continue Benfica’s good performance in the Champions League. To get there, and taking into account the difficulty of the matches they will play in the league phase, Rui Costa and the rest of Benfica’s Board are aware that having to play the play-off is a possible reality, but remain optimistic about their chances of overcoming that challenge.

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