Frustration, fans and Porto: all Marco Silva said after Benfica draw | OneFootball

Marco Silva’s Liga Portugal debut in charge of Benfica did not go as the coach had hoped. The Eagles were held to a 2-2 draw by Académico de Viseu, who had not played in the top flight for 37 years. At the post-match press conference, the Benfica coach did not hide his frustration. See everything the coach said:

Missed clear chances and the absence of the fans

“The absence of the fans had a big impact on the game, there’s no point hiding it, but there’s no use talking about it because it will sound like an excuse. We have to look at what we could and should have done differently to win the game, even without the fans. But I’m also one of those who believes that if we score two goals at home and don’t concede, that should be enough to win. We had many chances; with normal efficiency, this was a game that should have been wrapped up by half-time. We didn’t do that. We talked at the break to adjust a few things, mainly our first line of pressure when the opponent started dropping a midfielder to build with three. In offensive organization, they created practically no problems for us at all. The moments they had came in transition, some long balls or some transition moments in which we lost individual duels that we simply cannot lose. That’s the reality. The way the corner that led to the first goal starts is a moment where we have to be aggressive. We have to win that ball and then track the players, it’s a transition moment, we’re not organized. These are the kinds of things we have to improve quickly because, with the way we created chances and the number of scoring opportunities we produced, we are going to score. Today our finishing was very poor, but it’s important to keep giving the players confidence; we hit the woodwork three times. What we have to correct a lot, and quickly, is the way we conceded the goals and one or two transitions. In most moments we even had a numerical advantage; we weren’t even level. When that happens, we have to be aggressive in the way we contest those situations and win them, because that’s what we have to do when we’re exposed in offensive organization and lose a ball here and there. Above all that, we conceded two goals that we should not have conceded in the way we did. The first from a corner and the second after a throw-in. We have to stay in contact with the strikers and with the players who are in the box at that moment; that’s how you should defend. We will clearly improve in that area because there’s no other way, since these are very normal situations and we can’t concede them the way we did. We created many chances, a huge attacking output, the team was dominant as it had to be, as we wanted it to be too, and then we scored early, which could have given us even more calm to go for the second and then try to kill the game. That’s what we kept doing but unfortunately we didn’t score. We reacted well to the equalizer, quickly made it 2-1, and even so it wasn’t enough to stop us from conceding again. A very bad result for us, there’s no point hiding it. Now it’s about preparing for Thursday’s match, and then the next league game will come.”

Will he play with two strikers?

“I’m not going to say it will always be that way, but in more than 90% of cases the starting point will be with one positional striker, and then with the positioning we create either through the wingers or the more central players, that’s the direction we’ll take. We finished with two. There was a moment when we felt Prestianni was already a bit more worn out; he was clearly the man of the match because of how decisive he was, how he managed to create in practically every area of the pitch, on the left where he started, very wide, he generated much of our attacking output in the first half and also scored the goal. When we took Rafa out of the box, we moved him a bit more inside next to Andreas so we could have Prestianni more inside with Andreas on the outside. We tried in several ways. Then, already very tired, we ended up going with the two-striker situation, with Pavlidis moving from that area to get closer to Durán. We also tried to give full width on the right flank without Rafa, now with Lukebakio. We kept creating chances; the reality is we couldn’t put the ball in the net and we were punished with a very negative result for us.”

Competition between Samuel Soares and Trubin

“Samuel, Trubin and Diogo [Ferreira] are Benfica’s goalkeepers, they are part of the squad and they are the ones we are counting on.”

Lack of efficiency not seen against Hearts

“It’s not that easy to find solutions straight away for a lack of efficiency. Sometimes there are games like this, where we create a lot and can’t score a number of goals that matches the chances we created. Tonight is clearly one of those examples. There is no explanation for us being efficient on a Thursday, when we also had many chances to score more goals, and then the following Sunday no longer being as efficient. There is no clear explanation I can give as to why it happened one way or the other. These are situations that happened. And not focusing only on efficiency, when we concede two goals the way we did, we are normally going to have problems, and that’s what happened. If we had scored two or three more goals, as we should have done, we would have ended up winning the game, but even then, conceding goals like that, we still wouldn’t be happy. They would have been important points for us, but we still couldn’t be happy with the way we conceded the goals. Lack of concentration? Obviously, in the final stages there is some anxiety in trying to score, and that seems clear to me, it’s a natural situation, but it doesn’t seem like a lack of concentration to me. We can talk about concentration in other moments that are more important than the finishing moments when we failed to put the ball in the net.”

Impact of Porto’s win on Benfica

“The impact is the frustration we feel inside and that we have to channel in the right way. That frustration is naturally also with our fans right now. This was a game we should have won, we had to win it, and we didn’t. Sad, frustrated, but without looking for easy ways out. We move forward, that’s the reality. We dropped two points we should not have dropped, and we have to recover them somewhere else and in other kinds of games. That’s the only way I can look at this moment. You spoke about last season and many things that are not worth bringing up here. Right now we believe in what we are doing, we have a path to follow, there are still some things we need to keep correcting in the composition of our team and try to make Benfica stronger and stronger. That is our objective. We dropped two points, that’s the reality. Next week, another very important game for us to win.”

Another Benfica draw in the league

“What needs to change I’ve already explained in two or three questions I was asked. As for the fans getting used to that, I’m sure they won’t get used to it at all. Fans of this club do not get used to home draws. I understand that it was a reality last year and we have clearly started badly with this draw. One thing is the result we had and some from last year, another thing is our fans getting used to it, that is far from happening. If they had been inside the stadium, we would have felt the frustration, so if there’s one thing they will never get used to, it is home draws. As for the explanation for this draw, we can go down two paths. The one I most want to go down is the way we conceded goals that we cannot concede at this level. Yesterday, in the preview, I spoke about being solid, compact. One thing is to have an attacking mentality, a clear idea of the game, an identity as a team in which we want to be dominant, clearly play to win, and there are several ways to do that. Another thing that can put us on the path to winning titles is solidity, being focused and aggressive at the right moments and staying in contact with the opponent in the moments when we have to stay in contact, so that the chances or the goals the opponent scored today do not happen.”

Schjelderup’s introduction hurt Prestianni

“Benfica were ahead when Andreas came into the game. Prestianni played an excellent match, another outstanding game, creating in many different ways down the flank and taking on the opponent. Combining well, waiting for the right moments for Dahl to arrive. At that moment we wanted to give even more cutting edge to our left side and above all make a change in the number 10 position, that was our objective, to take Rafa off the right flank. We had a few solutions, but we wanted to keep what had been our strategy from the start of the game and which, offensively, was honestly working. We were creating chances, more with the winger moving inside and the full-back on the outside; that was how we planned the game. Prestianni never stopped creating, even on the right and when he moved inside.”

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