All eyes on Benfica – Santa Clara, Otamendi and Richard Ríos raise concerns | OneFootball

Still a week away from the match between Benfica and Santa Clara, Nicolás Otamendi and Richard Ríos are already starting to give Bruno Lage significant headaches. This is at a time when the Setubal native is dealing with a major squad shortage, knowing that the two South American athletes risk missing the duel against the Azoreans.

The newspaper Record writes today, September 4, that both the central defender and the midfielder will be serving their national teams for an extended period, and at the same time, both will undertake long journeys back to Portugal. Based on this, it is certain to say that the two players will arrive just before the match against Santa Clara, scheduled for September 12.

After the first qualifying commitment, the two players will participate in a second duel, which will take place in the early hours of September 10, Portuguese time, against Ecuador and Venezuela, respectively. The problem is that, even if they return immediately after the matches, both Otamendi and Ríos are subject to transatlantic flights, which will, in a way, increase the fatigue of the athletes in question.

Currently only training with seven players due to international commitments, Bruno Lage is expected to start receiving 'reinforcements' from next Monday, September 8. Additionally, two days later, it is expected that the Setubal native will count on the arrivals of António Silva, Amar Dedic, Rafael Obrador, Andreas Schjelderup, João Veloso, and Gonçalo Oliveira, all of whom will play the day before, August 9.

However, in the case of the right-back, Bruno Lage is not very concerned if the athlete arrives in time for the match against the Azoreans, since the Bosnian will serve a suspension after being sent off for accumulating yellow cards in the match against Alverca, which ended with a Benfica victory.

Break? It won't matter much. There are players playing on Wednesday [the 10th, cases of Otamendi and Ríos], and we have a game on Friday. Thank you.”

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