Marco Silva urged to start German-born full-back for Milan-Benfica | OneFootball

Benfica will face a marathon of big matches this week. While on Wednesday they will make their Europa League debut against Milan, on Sunday the Eagles travel to face Porto at the Estádio do Dragão in an extremely important clash for the team’s ambitions in the Liga Portugal title race. With that in mind, Hugo Vasconcelos suggested an alternative lineup, with room for a player who is rarely seen in the starting eleven.

“Trubin, Duarte Soares, Manu Silva, Circati, El Karouani, Barrenechea, Sudakov, Lukebakio, Echeverri, Kaminski and Jhon Durán. It seems like an interesting eleven to me,” he wrote in the newspaper 'A Bola', despite acknowledging that the players have never played together and that Bah’s absence limits the options, forcing the use of Duarte Soares, a full-back born in Germany who usually plays for the Eagles’ B team.

For the commentator, Marco Silva should use the European debut to rest his key players, not only because of the closeness of the clássico against Porto, but also considering the long season Benfica still have ahead of them.

“Even without the usual starters, Marco Silva is not short of options. Enough even to change the entire team. And he should do it tomorrow, in Milan, in the UEFA Europa League opener,” he argued. Hugo Vasconcelos believes the accumulated fatigue justifies a complete overhaul of the starting eleven.

"Let’s be realistic — few of them will be in a position to give their best response. The fact that there are only two days between matches (from the one the day before yesterday against Gil to tomorrow’s against Milan), with a plane trip in between, combined with the heavy physical toll of the last match at the Luz, because of the result, the temperature and the humidity, calls for changes. The Eagles’ coach himself admitted afterward that his team was not able to press Gil as well as they had done against other opponents," he concluded.

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