THE This Monday, Benfica will face one of its former players in the Azores archipelago, at the Estádio Municipal de São Miguel, with Petit being the helmsman of the surprising Santa Clara for the match at the end of the ninth round of the I League.
The island team has been one of the surprises of the national championship, with a fourth place finish that has been fighting for the podium in the league table, even though it has not faced any of the so-called ‘big three’, this being the Azorean team’s first test of fire, which comes right after the surprising elimination in the Portuguese Cup, against Mafra, from League 3.
Benfica is on a series of good results and has already won three consecutive victories after the Clásico at Estádio do Dragão, against FC Porto, having won the last two games by 4-1, in the Europa League.
Regarding the history of clashes between these two teams, the truth is that Benfica only lost to Santa Clara on one occasion, in 2019/20, at Estádio da Luz, by 3-4, and the last time they lost points on island terrain against the São Miguel team in 2021, with a 1-1 draw.
It should be emphasized that Santa Clara has something that Benfica no longer has in the national championship, as it is one of the three teams, along with Sporting and FC Porto, that has not yet felt the taste of defeat this season.
Referee Cláudio Pereira, from AF Aveiro, will whistle Santa Clara-Benfica, with assistants Tiago Costa and Jorge Fernandes, fourth referee Sérgio Guelho, VAR Rui Soares and AVAR Márcio Azevedo.
The match between Santa Clara and Benfica is scheduled for 6:45 pm this Monday and you can follow, live, the essentials of the match on Sport at the Minute.
Coaches in direct speech
Petite
Elimination from the Portuguese Cup: “We had our first defeat in a different competition. We learned our lesson, analyzed, corrected, but we have to react. In the championship we are in a good phase, knowing that we are going to face a candidate for the title and who is also going through a good moment. So we expect a difficult game, but we also hope to have a good reaction, playing at our home, with our fans”
Best attack against the best defense: “We have maintained defensive cohesion, together with FC Porto we have the best defense, but also in attack we are the fifth team with the most scoring opportunities in the championship. It will be a good game to watch and we hope to give a good response tomorrow, and continue with the good performance we have had throughout the season”.
Strategy: “We will have moments where we have to press high, other times Benfica will push us back, that’s part of it. Over the course of 90 minutes you can’t have the offensive flow or be installed in the opponent’s midfield, that doesn’t happen in any game”.
Marco Silva
Short margin of error in the I League: “It’s not pleasant to look at the standings. But we have to look at ourselves and win our games, week after week. From the moment we prepared for the season, we knew that we would play after our opponents, because of the Europa League. We know that’s how it works. If our opponents have good results, it will always happen. There’s no point wasting energy on that.”
Benfica better than FC Porto and Sporting: “There are several ways to win. Sometimes we want to play that way and we can’t. We have to win games and each coaching team chooses its own way of playing. I don’t have to make that comparison. We have our path and we want to follow it. We don’t want to be the prettiest at the party, we want to progress as a team and win titles”.
Good moment for Santa Clara: “Looking at the quality of Santa Clara – organization and quality – it will create difficulties for us. The pitch is not very easy either, especially due to the weather conditions. It is a pitch that sometimes creates difficulties. We expect a good game and we have to be prepared for what the game will dictate to us. We have to be able to resolve it”.
Last games
Santa Clara: DVEVV
Benfica: VVVDV
Last eleven
Santa Clara: Neneca, Lucas Soares, Emanuel Moreira, Pedro Pacheco, Guilherme Romão, Pedro Ferreira, João Vasconcelos, Djé Tavares, Vinícius Lopes, Fernando, Brenner Lucas.
Benfica: Anatoliy Trubin, Alexander Bah, Alessandro Circati, Tomás Araújo, Souffian El Karouani, Manu Silva, Fredrik Aursnes, Rafa Silva, Claudio Echeverri, Andreas Schjelderup, Vangelis Pavlidis.
Absences
Santa Clara: Djé Tavares (suspended).
Benfica: Leandro Barreiro, Daniel Banjaqui, Enzo Barrenechea, Jaden Umeh, Jakub Kaminski and Jhon Durán (injured).
