Marco Silva tries to shake up Benfica with a new warm-up routine | OneFootball

Benfica’s 5-0 win over St. Gallen, which secured qualification for the third Europa League qualifying round, was notable not only for the team’s excellent performance, but also for some changes implemented by Marco Silva in the group’s management before kick-off.

Unlike what usually happened, the substitute players only came onto the pitch when there were about 30 minutes left before the start of the match, more than ten minutes after the starters. The group carried out only activation and mobility exercises, and another change in the routine was also noticeable: throughout the entire first half, no player was warming up, a decision that reflected the coaching staff’s confidence in the plan prepared for the match.

The coach’s new methods cannot, by themselves, be singled out as responsible for the result, but they coincided with a convincing response from the Eagles, who dominated the second leg and turned the tie around after the 2-1 defeat in Switzerland.

Benfica started strongly and opened the scoring in the 11th minute, with Pavlidis finishing first-time after an assist from Rafa. Before half-time, António Silva came close to extending the lead and Aliou Baldé hit the crossbar, keeping the tie level on aggregate. In the second half, Pavlidis scored again in the 55th minute, putting Benfica ahead in the tie and, shortly afterwards, St. Gallen were reduced to ten men.

The Greek forward completed his hat-trick with a header in the 65th minute, scored again from the penalty spot in the 74th minute, sealing a historic four-goal haul, and Clément Lenglet wrapped things up in the 82nd minute to make the final score 5-0. With this rout, Benfica advance to the third Europa League qualifying round, where they will face Scottish side Hearts, keeping alive their goal of securing a place in the league phase of the European competition.

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