week 2 opponent review Benfica

By: j | August 27th, 2008

The debut of Quique Flores as manager for Benfica was a painful one with a auspicious 1-1 draw against Rio Ave. With hopes at Estádio da Luz high, this was the last thing faithful supporters had in mind. However before you sound the alarms, Rui Costa, now the head of Football operations, has invested heavily in the transfer market (net investment +€15m) with a superb group of talent. Clear and to the point, Benfica wants to fill the trophy-case and is prepared to spend the money to do so.

While it may be presumptuous, I’m going to push aside the Rio Ave draw because I think Benfica has put together a top-flight squad. Amongst a litany of quality talent, they have added Pablo Aimar (Real Zaragoza), Sidnei (Internacional), Javier Balboa (Real Madrid), Carlos Martins (Recreativo Huelva), Reyes (Atlético de Madrid) and Jonathan Urretavizcaya (River Plate). And of course the biggest story on the club is the emergence of Ángel Di María who has quickly been recognized as one of the most exciting young talents in Portugal if not all of Football. With this in mind, I think you can safely say that Rio Ave was very lucky to face Benfica at this stage of the campaign when they not only weren’t used to playing with each other but had a number of absences, most notably Ángel Di María. If I haven’t made myself clear, Benfica is a dangerous squad with the young Argentine and Pablo Aimar able to change the course of any match.

Quite obviously they have yet to gel as a team but I expect them to play a very controlling match and to constantly attack through the flanks, both their strength and Porto’s weakness. Estádio da Luz will be a very difficult challenge as you would expect for a Clássico and Porto will need to play a tactically more precise match then this past week. Benfica has yet to release a injury report but I will update that with the second portion of my review that will focus upon Porto’s tactics.