Marco Silva rings the changes, but 4 Benfica players hold firm | OneFootball

he is building a new Benfica without much fuss, but the changes introduced since taking charge of the Eagles are becoming increasingly clear. Although the team still relies on a core of players who were already part of the squad last season, the coach has brought in new ideas and made deep changes to his choices for the starting XI, especially in defense.

The comparison between the first 14 official matches of 2025/26 and the same number of games this season shows the scale of the transformation. Under Bruno Lage and José Mourinho, several players had taken on a prominent role, but Marco Silva’s arrival brought new hierarchies.

In the first 14 matches of this season, only three players who were among the most used in the corresponding period of 2025/26 have kept that status: Samuel Dahl, Vangelis Pavlidis and Enzo Barrenechea. Nicolás Otamendi, António Silva, Amar Dedic, Richard Ríos and Franjo Ivanovic dropped out, while Andreas Schjelderup - who played against Portugal - , Fredrik Aursnes and Anatoliy Trubin have lost ground.

When the comparison is made with the previous season as a whole, the picture changes slightly. Instead of three, there are four players who remain among the most used: Dahl, Pavlidis, Barrenechea and Leandro Barreiro. The use of the João Palhinha-Aursnes pairing, which appeared for the first time in the match in Milan and was kept for the clássico against Porto, is another example of the changes introduced by Marco Silva, who had previously turned more often to Barreiro and Barrenechea. The coach has made good use of the players who were already at the Luz and, despite the changes, only Clément Lenglet, among the new signings, appears in the group of the 11 most-used players, with Palhinha also establishing himself as an important option.

Marco Silva’s revolution is not limited, however, to changes in and out of the starting XI. The coach has managed to get more out of players who were already part of the squad, especially Pavlidis, Prestianni and Barreiro, who have shown improved performances.

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