Marco Silva gets late boost for St. Gallen - Benfica | OneFootball

Tomás Araújo is expected at Benfica Campus this Monday to rejoin first-team training, after the holiday period granted following his participation in the 2026 World Cup. The centre-back becomes the second Benfica international to return to Marco Silva’s squad, after Amar Dedic, who reported back last Friday.

The aim now is to prepare for the trip to Switzerland, where Benfica will face St. Gallen on Thursday, in the first leg of the second qualifying round for the Europa League league phase. Over the course of this week, Marco Silva is also expected to welcome back the remaining internationals who took part in the World Cup, in line with the holiday plan set by Benfica according to each national team’s progress in the competition.

Tomás Araújo played one match at the 2026 World Cup, starting and completing the full 90 minutes in Portugal’s draw against the Democratic Republic of the Congo (1-1) in the opening group-stage match. In the remaining games against Uzbekistan, Colombia, Croatia and Spain, the centre-back stayed on the bench.

Amar Dedic, meanwhile, featured more prominently for Bosnia. The right-back provided an assist in the draw against Panama (1-1), before playing the full 90 minutes in the matches against Canada (1-1), Switzerland (1-4) and the United States (0-2). The only game he missed was against Qatar.

who may finally be able to work with virtually the entire squad available in a decisive week for the official start of the season. Even so, some transfer-market issues remain unresolved. One of the cases still attracting the most attention is that of Andreas Schjelderup.

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