Marco Silva: “Strange things? Ask Farioli, that’ll be fun” | OneFootball

Marco Silva, Benfica’s coach, addressed Lenglet’s sending-off and Francesco Farioli’s comments in the aftermath of the 3-1 defeat to FC Porto in the Clássico played at the Estádio do Dragão. Amid criticism of the atmosphere surrounding the refereeing and a call for greater maturity from his own team, he refused to dwell on the incident and assured: “We have to look at ourselves.”

Asked about Lenglet’s sending-off, he avoided directly assessing the decision. His answer quickly broadened to Farioli’s words, the refereeing, and the narrative around the match, before returning to the team’s responsibility.

“I’m not going to comment on Lenglet’s sending-off. If the club has to say something, it should say it. I don’t know if I’ll be able to carry on like this until the end of the season. I come from a different culture. Here, unfortunately, referees can be influenced before games, after games, during the week. I’m not going down that road. Mister Farioli is coming here next, ask him the question. You like that too. It’s good for Portuguese football. It’s great. People enjoy it. And we keep selling Portuguese football well…,” he said. “Once again today, the narrative will be that it was a fantastic game. Very beautiful. That’s how it is. Congratulations to whoever won. As for the sending-off, I want my players to be more mature. Whether there were provocations or not, we have to keep that emotional balance. It was crucial for us today to finish the game 11 against 11. Unfortunately, that didn’t happen. We have to look at ourselves.”

His remarks swung between criticism of the context and self-criticism. Marco Silva did not hide his discomfort, but he placed a decisive part of the interpretation of the sending-off on the players’ emotional control.

“Make the most of the next moment, it’ll be great,” he replied. “Did I say anything about ‘Strange Things’? I’m not the one who’s going to manage the opponent’s aggressiveness. There are four referees there and two more on VAR to see whether it goes beyond the limit or not.”

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