Marco Silva cuts short holiday, bold move to speed up Benfica prep | OneFootball

Marco Silva decided to give up the remaining vacation days he still had left in order to speed up preparations for Benfica’s new season. The coach, officially confirmed as José Mourinho’s successor on June 9 and presented on June 12, wants to make up for lost time during the managerial change process and is now fully focused on building the squad for 2026/27.

According to information reported by O JOGO, the coach has been splitting his time between the Benfica Campus and work done from home. The aim is to analyze all the information related to the squad, the professional football structure, and pre-season planning, in what is seen as a decisive stage before the players return to training.

The delay in officially confirming the coaching change forced several adjustments to Benfica’s plans. The wait for the outcome of Real Madrid’s presidential elections, in which José Mourinho played an important role in Florentino Pérez’s campaign, delayed several processes. Marco Silva also ended up delaying his response to Fulham for as long as possible, after they had presented him with a contract renewal offer.

Although there was already a planning framework developed in previous months, Rui Costa and Mário Branco felt that all strategic decisions had to be validated by the new coach. Issues related to arrivals, departures, the promotion of young talents, and the organization of pre-season were reviewed by the coach, who has been holding frequent meetings with Benfica’s structure.

With the start of training scheduled for June 25, Benfica are going through intense days of preparation. Marco Silva will have around a month to prepare the team for the season’s first official match, against St. Gallen, in the second qualifying round of the Europa League. Before that, the Eagles will also have important tests against Flamengo on July 11 and Villarreal on the 17th, as part of the Algarve Tournament.

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