Palhinha's gesture to Benfica player stands out: ugly duckling to swan | OneFootball

During the celebrations of Benfica's second goal in the 2-0 win over Milan, João Palhinha asked the more than four thousand Benfica supporters at San Siro for extra backing to lift Jakub Kaminski, who has had a difficult start to the season at the Luz, usually coming off the bench. This moment was praised by Ricardo Quinteiro.

"Palhinha showed leadership when he saw an ugly duckling turn into a swan. It is normal for teammates to seize the moment to boost him. João Palhinha has leadership qualities like few others in Benfica's current squad, so I consider it not only natural, but also desirable, for the leaders to rally around a player," he said on BOLA TV.

The journalist says that Georgiy Sudakov is a similar case. "I believe that if Sudakov had had that little bit of luck in the first half, when he hit the post, or if he had had the confidence to shoot in the second half and had scored, the reaction from his teammates would have been very similar," he said.

After the match, Kaminski played down the criticism he has received in recent times. "It's normal. When I don't perform well, it's normal for fans and journalists to criticize. I know my form was poor, I needed to work on my fitness. Now it's better, but I can still improve some things. I'm very happy to come to San Siro and win 2-0. It was a great performance from me and from the team. We made history," he said.

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