The Portuguese Klopp! (THE END)

The start of The Journey

IF YOU ARE NEW HERE, THE PHOTOS OF THE ALL STORIE (EXCEPT LAST CHAPTER) DISAPPEARED. HI WILL RECOVER THEM, BUT SORRY FOR THAT! APPRECIATE ALL OF YOUR VIEWS!

ALSO, SUMMER MARKET IS ON! BIG NEWS INCOMING!

Against all odds, Diogo is the new manager of Sport Lisboa e Benfica. The former coach of Red Bull Salzburg U19 signed until 30.06.2024 and wants to bring the energy that made Salzburg U19 one of the most exciting teams in the last season, despite the bad result agains Benfica U19 in the UEFA Youth League final. The Portuguese Coach got known in Austria by the “Portuguese Klopp” in reference of his style of play, the gegenpressing.

Goals: My goal will be to create an unique play style and be recognized for that. We want to high press all the opponents no matter who they are! If we lose, we lose. If we concede 5 goals, we concede 5 goals, we will not care. With the ball we want few touches, few passes, deep plays and try to have a lot of goals.
Academy wise, we want to use and develop the most players as we can, but they need to deserve a spot in the squad (min 6.85 average in the firsts seasons).
Competitions:
• Portuguese League Champions
• Reach Champions League Group Stage and then Round of 16
• Portuguese Cup and Portuguese League Cup is not in our main focus. We will use them to use our young or less used players!

Lets figure it out the best 3 tactics (we wanna adapt to our opponents, to press them the best as we can) and use some different friendlies to improve the way we want to play!

Trying to understand how to upload an Image (sorry guys)! If you know, text me up! (Already did it, sorry about the quality! Taking baby steps in this)!

Tactics (quite differente now)!

Our Tactics are set up! Of course we need to test them in friendlies but our basis are there. We created 3 Tactics that we are going to use, depending on the opponent tactic. If they play in a 4-4-2, we will play aswell. The 4-2-3-1 is to face the 4-3-3 and the 4-3-3 is to face the 4-2-3-1!

The Balance, Positive and Attacking mentality are there just to train them but in the League we want to use only the Attacking one no matter what system we use. Balance and Positive only for Champions League, but always with high pressure on!

The team instructions are almost exclusive to the defensive part of the game. Ofensive wise, we want the players to decide the game by themselves, giving them the freedom to choose to direct or shot passing, to shooting or making an assist, to cross earlier or to pass untill find some spaces in the box, to go 1 vs 1 with the defenders, etc. We only want them to try build up from the back and to play in high tempo. To this style we will need some players with good decision making.

In the 4-4-2 our goal is to have to have good wingers, one deep striker and one complete striker to help the build up. One of the CMs controling the tempo and the other one only focusing on destroying the counters from the other team.

The 4-3-3 we go narrow to have a lot of players in the middle and find some good combinations. Deep striker to keep the defenders also deep, CM Attack to get closer to the striker and inside fowards, and the other CM and DM with basically with the same roles that we used in the 4-4-2.

4-2-3-1 pretty much a mix between 4-4-2 and 4-3-3 but we will take a risk and playing with one of the CMs with attacking duty!

Really looking foward to the transfer market and also to friendlies where we hope everything works right so we don't have the need to change the tactics a lot!

Champions League - Road to Group Stage Path

So, first stage of the season is done and the results were quite interesting!

This was our first opponent to Champions League Group Stage path! FC Midtjylland

0 - 1 (Henrique Araújo 73'): Not the easiest match, but we did what we needed to do, so no problems at all! 19 shots and 2.55 expected goals vs 10 shots and 0.62 expected goals. We used our 4-3-3 Formation!

3 - 2 (Rafa 8', João Mário pen 15' and Fran Perez 82'): Despite our good goal scoring start, playing wise, wasn't good at all. Our opponent created some chances to score, they had 1.39 expected goals and 2 clear chances wich is pretty much, considering that we were facing a team who we should beat easily. But the job was done and we reached the Champions League Play Offs!


Nex opponent, PSV! This is a team that we need to have way more respect and pay more attention to strengths and weaknesses of them!

0 - 1 (Rafa 64'): Such a good start from us, having 9 shots in the firsts 15 minutes. But then, PSV started to take advantage of the space behind our full backs and we got some troubles, not easy at all to stop Gakpo and El Ghazi. We changed the FB rolls from Attacking to Supporting and marking men on men the wingers. We wanted to be a little bit more balanced on the counter press, so we can press them, facing them straigh away! We got the control of the game again, we scored a goal and we were really happy on the way home. Such an important win!

4 - 0 (Draxler 10', Rafa 16', Gonçalo Ramos 43' and David Neres 65'): 16' and 2 goals destroyed PSV's motivationd and this game became an easy game. We played in our 4-2-3-1, we started the game with the FB in Supporting duty and also marking the wingers (like we did in the other match). We controlled PSV game style, they had only 0.64 expected goals and we had 2.28 expected goals. To be honest, we were very effective in front of the goal but I was pretty happy the way we controlled PSV game style and also played our good football. Lets go to the Champions League Group Stage!

(In few hours I'm gonna post the League results! We played 2 rivals at home, and the results.. Wait to see!)

First results and feedback!

Very tough start on the championship! BRG (Braga) is a new rival of Benfica and Sporting CP is one of the two big big rivals! Also BVT (Boavista) away is always a hard match.

5 - 1 BRG (Gonçalo Ramos 15', Henrique Araújo 24' 32', Rafa 75' and João Mário 79'): What an amazing start! Braga use to play in a 4-4-2 so we played aswell in that system, to make sure we didn't concede any individual space for them! The start was pretty good, they did the 2-1 but then the 3-1 before the half time killed their ambitions! At the half-time we said to the team to keep on with the intensity and to never turn off. Rafa and João Mário completed the big result and our fans were pretty happy! Good overall performance, 2.69 expected goals vs 0.67 expected goals is good stat and showed how good we were defensively.

0 - 2 BVT (Henrique Araújo 36' e Henrique Pereira 45'): Very good result. They played in 3-4-3 with very close lines, so I tryed the 4-3-3. Why? Because I wanted our CMs to help the ST on the inside press and the wingers to control the FBs. I think it worked and we got a good result and also a good overall match. By the end with some subs, they had 1/2 chances but not big of a deal as we had the full control of the game. Like I said before, is always a hard match (BVT away), our fans were anxious about it so at the end we were very pleased!

2 - 2 Arouca (H) (Henrique Araújo 19' and Draxler 62'): We were so so bad. I got sick to be honest. At the end, I threw a bottle against the floor, I yelled at the players, I faced them eye-to-eye. It's the kind of match that simple, can not happen. Too bad. They had 2.62 expected goals and we only had 1.98 and with a pen! Without a pen we would have 1.10 or something. Unbelievable. We played in 4-3-3, swap some players to make sure we were full rested for PSV, and it was a tragedy. The spaces behind our FBs were enormous (again) and got me thinking that even against small / medium teams we need to have them with Supporting duty. The fans whistled at us, plenty of reason and in the conference room I said sorry and I was embarrassed about our performance. No excuses and hard work for the next weeks!

3 - 1 Famalicão (Rafa 2', Henrique Araújo 52' and João Mário 72'): Good game from us. At the half-time the game was 1-1, but we were having a lot of chances so it was a matter of time. We played in 4-2-3-1, had 3.16 expected goals and they had 0.79 expected goals. In this game we played with the FBs on Supporting duty and our counter press was way way better. Happy about our performance, right away after the win against PSV (A) so our fans started to trust us again and that means a lot! We depend on them!


Our next opponent, big rival, Sporting CP!

We can see from here that they use a lot of crosses and trough balls and we have to take care of that. Also, they used to play in a 5-2-3. What we think was, lets play in 4-4-2. Our 2 strickers will take care of their CBs, our wingers will mark their FBs and our FBs will mark their wingers. Our CMs will press their CMs, almost men on men. We gonna drop our defensive line (not a lot, but keeping the high press) to take care of the trough balls, in order to control the space behind our CBs.



What a game! João Mário completely stood out! Defensive wise we were so so good, and showed us that our plan was perfect! We didn't have ball posession, but like I said in the beggining, we want to play with few passes but high tempo! And that was what we did. So happy about the performance and our fans, my god, "Inferno da Luz" like we say in Portugal! Lets go Benfica!
3 - 0 Sporting (João Mário 6' 19' and Gonçalo Ramos 55')

Start of the season!

We were Pot 3 so, no high expectations to get an easy group. Hard to reach the round of 16 but even if we can't, we want to show our playstyle to all Europe! Lets build up something special or get smashed, but we want to keep the high press mentality even on away games! Lets go!


Games for the next 2 months, not easy at all and we gonna need all of our players!


Gilberto : Tottenham - 10M
Diogo Gonçalves : Rennes - 1.1M
André Almeida : Brest - 350k
Gil Dias : Wolfsburg - 850k
Rodrigo Pinho : Spezia - 1.2M
Chiquinho : Troyes - 425k


Fran Perez : Valencia B - 1.5M
Guille Rosas : Sporting Gijon - 8.25M

Transfermarket: The squad had some non-sense players that were winning huge salaries and having poor performances. We sold them for interesting prices to be honest and we only bought 2 players. Guille Rosas to RB (only had Bah) and Fran Perez to LW or RW (only had Neres, Rafa and the young Henrique Pereira). Fran is also young but we believe that he can add right now!


As we can see, we still have some poor players, but they came this season so I'm not able to sell them. Is a very young squad, with a lot of potential players and I think we can build something really special in the clube. Looking foward to develop this huge talents and create a team Made in Benfica!


These were the best players of the month! 4 out of 6 are from academy wich made all of our Academy Staff really proud, and also me!

Lets play the next games and hope we can do something really nice!

Games!

Benfica 3 – 4 PSG (Draxler 9’, Henrique Araújo 70’ and Rafa 80’): Tough game as expected but the team made what we asked! We started the game winning 1-0 and controlling PSG with the same strategy that we beat Sporting, but then Neymar and Mbappe showed up. Neymar was able to receive the ball behind our midfield line, facing our defensive line and we got in trouble. Mbappe made a hat trick, Neymar scored one and did 2 assists. They were unstoppable! At the half-time the score was 1-1, they did the 3-1, we drew 3-3 and at the 82th minute, Mbappe froze the stadium. At the final whistle, our fans stood up, applauded us and we got a good feeling because we did everything we could and presented them with a good show. Baby steps are taking and the players are enjoying our style!

Benfica 3 – 0 Paços de Ferreira (Enzo Fernandez 2’, Gonçalo Ramos 7’ and Gonçalo Ramos 45+1’): Easy game and to be honest, kinda upset that we didn’t push up in the second half. If we kept the intensity I bet we could score more 2/3 goals and get an amazing result. The 5 subs at the same time (minute 58) took some intensity of the team and the rest of the game was quite boring. But the good first half got me excited. Also Paços was 3rd on the League Table so, not a bad team at all, at the moment!

Chelsea 0 – 2 Benfica (António Silva 67’ and P. Musa 85’): WHAT A WIN!!! Huge win for us. We played our game (balanced mentality), same strategy against Sporting and PSG but not dropping the defensive line (Havertz doesn’t make deep runs) and what a game! Very good first half, having the double of shots, but couldn’t score our chances. Second half we said to our team to keep what they were doing, and we scored from a corner. Chelsea reacted and had one really good chance (great block from António Silva) but then, Draxler and Musa showed up and we sentenced the game. Again, huge win to reach the Round of 16 and what a morale boost!

Benfica 4 – 0 Estoril Praia (Henrique Araújo 3’, 11’, 77’ and Otamendi 17’): Another easy game at home (we’ve been playing a lot at home lately). At the 17th minute the game was already done but this time the team kept the intensity until the end. Henrique Araujo banged a hat trick and he is playing so well for us. This game we used the 4-3-3 but we are struggling about the attacking instructions of our FBs. We want them ready to press the opponent but also to be part of the attack and lately the attacking part hasn’t been so aggressive as we want. Lets try to sort out this situation!

Vitoria de Guimarães 1 – 3 Benfica (Gonçalo Ramos 4’, Henrique Araújo 22’ and 55’): What a win from us! Usually, Vitoria de Guimarães away is such a tough game, but we flew on the pitch! Our 4-4-2 is rocking (we faced again the 5-2-3), we had 4.81 expected goals against 1.34 and we could have scored easily 2 more goals, but I will not complain. Gonçalo Ramos and Henrique Araújo on the attack are having an amazing chemistry and they’ve been scoring and creating so many chances. So, entertain to watch this match. Really pleased with our performance!

Glimt 1 – 5 Benfica (Bah 11’, Henrique Pereira 16’, Rafa 23’, 66’ and Gonçalo Ramos 46’): It’s always good when we have a win like this in the Champions League. Hated the way we started the game, 1-0 for them but then we created 5/6 chances and we scored most of them so, can’t complain. We’ve been training a lot the finishing, we feel it have a major impact on our performances / results. Rafa is playing so well lately! He asked for a new contract, and the way he is playing and his influence on the team we couldn’t say no! Really looking forward to his renewal and hoping he continues like he’s been doing!

Santa Clara 0 – 4 Benfica (Henrique Araújo pen 45’, 70’, Gonçalo Ramos 58’ and Bah 61’): Horrible first half from us. We could only scored on a penalty and they had a player sent off at the 43rd minute. We played again in our 4-3-3 and the performance wasn’t good at all. At the half time with one more player we put the 4-4-2 and yes, our players flew again on the field! The 4-3-3 need some improvements. I think the Right CM (CM – Attacking) is really deep and kinda hiding when we’re building up from behind, so we don’t have a good connection on our right side! Gonna work out on that, trying some adjustments to make sure this system perform like the other two!

Benfica 5 – 2 Glimt (João Mário 12’ 16’ 39’, Henrique Araújo 21’ and G. Rosas 90+2’): Kind of game that gives me mix feelings. First half was very good, they had almost the same amount of shots we had but we created so many chances and they didn’t get close to that (only long shots). 4-0 at the half-time and I told the team how happy I was! Second half in 13rd minutes, they did the 4-2 and that got me angry! I criticized the team, some of our players got sad but didn’t care at all, not acceptable. We started to take the control of the game again, created some chances and finished the game with the first goal of Rojas at our club! Teammates got really happy for him, and it was a nice way to finish the game. Still saying in the locker room that the second half was unacceptable, and we can’t deliver something like that to our fans.

Oliveirense 1 – 6 Benfica (Henrique Pereira 18’ 59’ 69’, David Neres 45’ 64’ and Musa 80’): Portuguese Cup and we did what we had to do. Couldn’t bet on our youth players because the B team played the day before, so we used the players with less minutes or in worst shape. The game was quite easily so, not much to talk about it. Huge game ahead of us (vs Porto, away), 6 days to prepare the match and lets figure it out the best strategy. Wanna keep the momentum!

Tonight I’m gonna put a video (clip against Guimarães) about the importance of our FB – Supporting and how fast we play!

Big Games!

Big game ahead! Porto (away) is always a tough match for us. In the last 10 matches (away and home) against Porto our score is 1-2-7 (yes, defeated 7 times). Usually, our players get scared every time we face Porto, so is our job to make sure this time, that won’t happen! Porto will play in 4-4-2, so we gonna use the same tactic. Our mentality will be positive mentality, we will try to stop their crosses and also the trough balls. Not sure yet if we’ll mark M-M their wingers and FBs.

2 - 2 Porto (A) (Henrique Araújo 22' and Rafa 89'): What a match it was! At the 3rd minute we were losing 1-0 and at the 15th minute we were losing 2-0! We said to the team to calm down and at the 22nd minute we did the 1-2, but I wasn’t enjoying the way we were playing, at all. At the half-time I yelled at the team and to Gonçalo Ramos in particular (he was the support striker in our 4-4-2 and he was losing too many balls), gave him a chance but at the 65th minute I took him off (Draxler in), I was desperate. Put Rafa there as a False 9 (4 stars in that role) and Draxler on the left wing, and guess what? Everything changed! We started to have way more chances, our build up on the midfield was way better (Rafa's connection was so good) and we got the control of the game. At the 89th minute Draxler assisted Rafa and he didn’t miss! Our fans became so happy, our bench jumped out, what a goal! We finished the game with 22 shots against 14 and 3.27 expected goals against 2.00, we deserved the win! Still didn’t beat Porto, but our brave got me happy and excited! This is the Benfica we want, and we’ve been working on! Next game, Chelsea (H)! Huge match ahead as well that can give us the Round of 16! Let’s go!

6 - 2 Chelsea (Henrique Araújo 7' 14' 60', Rafa 17', David Neres 53' and Gonçalo Ramos 90'): Amazing win! We started the game losing 1-0 (Havertz 3') but an amazing response from the players gave us a very good advantage (3-1 at the 17th minute)! They reduce to 3-2 by Mount but in the second half we smashed! They presented us with a 4-3-3 so we respond with a 4-2-3-1 with Rafa at CAM (Gonçalo Ramos benched out) and the team had a great performance. We needed a point to qualify for the round of 16 but we don’t play to draw or with possible results, we play to win and with only one way, offense! Pretty happy with the result, performance and with the stadium environment. Really important to keep the momentum and don’t switch off in the easy games! Lets keep the intensity high!

PSG 2 – 0 Benfica: Nothing to say, they were better, we weren’t good at all, and I expected more from us. 18 shots for them against 5, but they didn’t have one clear chance (also us), they had 3 half-chances and we had 2, but I really didn’t enjoy how few shots we had (first game without scoring any goal). We need to be way more aggressive. Overall, the job was done, good performance in the Group Stage and off to the next round! Hope we get some giant because we want to improve the way we play those matches!

(Next few posts I will not post the feedback from every match, only the bigger ones. The rest I will post a photo of all results from that month with a overall feedback).

Season so far!

This have been our results so far! Nothing to say about the team performance, simply amazing! We´ve been using all the 3 formations (pretty much the same team instructions for all) and atm I can't tell you which one is better!


This is our performance on the League. Amazing goal score average, some goals conceded, but couldn't care less! Pretty happy about our play style and how the players incorporate it! That draw against Arouca at home is still spending holidays on my mind, so anoying, how could we.



Our players stats! At the defense, António Silva and Morato are smashing down there! Also, both very young, giving us good perspectives about the future. At the midfield, Enzo, João Mário and Aursnes are doing really well. Attackers, really happy with Draxler, David Neres, Rafa and Henrique Araújo. They've been class for us. Musa also good in the easiest games and Ramos, so disappointed about him. Our young players (Nuno Félix, Veloso and Diego Moreira) are showing us that next season is still too early for them. Probably they´ll go on loan or keep playin in the B team!


Our opponent! We asked for that, they delivered. Not sad at all, big chance for us to improve in these games so let's enjoy! And who knows, maybe we and the Europe can have a surprise..

Plans for the market

Get rid of the players we don’t trust. Not many to be honest as the players are playing really well, even when we rotate the lineup. Brooks will be sold, and we won’t say no to any proposal, because we think that a good amount of money will be helpful to star to invest in some young players. But won’t be easy to negotiate with us.
Florentino to Manchester United: Here we go. 40M, 20M now, 20M in 3 years and still 50% of profit of the next transfer. As you can see, he is good, but I think we can find someone to replace him. Let’s try to spend only 10M and save the other 10M!

Henrique Araújo: Everybody wants Henrique Araújo! We received 20M from Real Madrid that we said immediately no (25G and 7A in 20(4) games) and he got unhappy. We arrange an agreement to sell him for 34.5M which is so low. Gonna be a war to keep him, but we don’t care.

Yoni Gonzalez to Bétis: He said no (1.6M). Such a horrible player that our former president bought. He arrived from loan at the 31st of December, we put him in the U23 Squad, we had an agreement with Bétis, perfect deal and he said no, so devastating. We paid him 210k to let him go.

Conti to Velez: Here we go. Similar situation that Yoni had. 300k euros it’s completely fine and less 47k a month so can’t complain at all.

Brooks to Galatasaray: Here we go. 150k is nothing but we are saving 145k a month, which is a lot for us! Another “good” deal.

The Market and some issues!

This was our winter market! As you can see some important players went out and we are having some line up issues. About the transfers, Rafa we had no chance. He had that clause, PSG paid the clause and of course he said yes. Florentino Luis already spoke about him, very good deal for us, tbh. Otamendi, he asked to sign for another club at the end of his contract, we tried to convince him, but no chance from him, he wanted to leave. When he signed for Newcastle to go in June, we told Newcastle that we were available to let him go for 925k and there he went. We have some good CBs (Veríssimo, António Silva, Morato and João Victor) so this wasn’t a major problem. To replace Florentino we bought Perrone, to replace Rafa we bought Schjelderup and Giovani! Two amazing talents, that I think will not perform so well this season but I hope next season they will give us some good moments. This was our winter market!


Our problem is here... As you can see, Grimaldo (6-8 months, dear lord), João Mário and Henrique Araujo are out and if we add Rafa, Florentino and Otamendi and also Enzo (he was injured) from our 1st line up we lost 6 players. Is a lot and the team is feeling it. The performances are not the same, we miss Henrique a lot and yes, kinda of a new start (also Perrone is out, on the U20 Argentina, we didn't even have the chance to train with him, yet). It’ll be important to get some good results, despite one or two bad performances, so that the new players can create some good connections and we get our dynamic back again!


Probably some drama from me, but that 2-3 against Porto, 4-2 BVT (H) and Gil Vicente 2-1 (A) got me worried. Let's see what the team can bring us in the next matches!

Season Overview

What a season, I recon! League Title won, with a huge difference to the second place! Champions League, I think we did pretty well to be honest. We faced Bayern, which is top tier and we fought quite well, nothing to be a shame and a lot of lessons learned! Portuguese Cup, winners in the final against Sporting (3-2)! Like I said, the Cups don’t excite me, so we used it to put some of the best youth players and also the players that weren't in shape! League Cup, runner ups against Porto (2-3)!

These were our best players! Henrique Araújo completely stood out and is the only player I can’t sell. He = Goals, and good strikers are not easy to find! It’ll be a war to keep him, but we will go with everything we have. Neres, Ramos, Draxler and Morato complete the top 5! (I will talk the market plans soon).

This was our Champions Path. As you can see, nice games against Bayern Munich. At home, we were winning 2-1, the game was ours, our plan was working well but suddenly Naglesmann made a master move, I didn’t notice, and we lost. They were playing in 4-2-3-1, we knew and we were controlling the game. In the last minutes they changed for a tactic that I’ve never seen, 4-2-2-2 with two CDMs, two CAMs and two ST. They scored the 2-2 at the 90th minute and the 2-3 at 90+2.. So tough for us, but brilliantly done by Naglesmann. Away, 1-1 boring game. They were better but only had 3 half chances and we had 1. I think we learned a lot in this Champions League and hope we can step up for the next season!

This was our League! 2 draws and 1 defeat, quite brilliant! We won the title in the 29th round with 27W 2D and 103G, and after that those next 5 games were boring. The team didn’t put an effort on and made me sad, we could have made history, but we didn’t... And all easy games, so stupid. But, can’t complain at all! The players did an amazing job and we put on a show every game!

Game of the season for me, along with Chelsea (H)! Amazing game, kind of game that made me come to Benfica and try this play style!

Tactics that we used! I’m trying different things in the 4-3-3. The other ones, loved the way it worked!
(Now the tactics are the ones that I'm using!)
In the League we use all the tactics in attacking mentality. I just train the other mentalities to make sure that in the Champions League the players are recognized with them. Never used a defensive mentality.

Great season, and off to the next one!

Market Plans!

So, like I said before, Henrique Araújo is the only player that we will not sell no matter what! The other ones, of course it’ll be hard to negotiate with us, but a good proposal can make us change our mind. Which players we want to buy: LB, CB, CM, W and ST. Kind of players we want to buy: Not so young players, around 25/26/27 years old and we will not care if some good players are in the 30s. We need some experience in the squad and a good bench. We felt in the second part of the season that in some games a better bench would give us a better performance / result. We love young players, to develop them but if we don’t take care also about the present, next season can be tough for us, especially in the Champions League. Two dream players: Bellingham and Félix. Not for the next season of course, but one day we will try to sign them. Love both and they suit our squad perfectly!

Next transfer market incoming..

New season has started and I'm going to share the big news!


So this is our squad! As you can see, big names in it!

Who came:
Martinelli - 45M + 20M
Matheus Cunha - 9.25M
Cristiano Ronaldo - 8.5M
Ceballos - Free

So, as I said in the last post, we needed a little bit of more depth in our squad. We felt a little bit of it at some moments last season, and we wanted to avoid the same this season. Martinelli, was a huge deal, big amount of money but to be honest, we will sell him for way more! And is Martinelli, such a huge name joining us, couldn’t say no! Type of player that will help us to have Félix and Bellingham and (I hope) will make a huge difference! It was a no brainer! Matheus Cunha, very good opportunity. We have Neres, Martinelli and we needed another very good player to the winger spot. He was listed at that price, felt like we assaulted a bank, what a deal. Ronaldo.. At that price, why not? Not huge salary (146k a month) and in the first 4 rounds, the second goat got 5 goals. Perfect. Ceballos, same feeling as Matheus Cunha. We needed a player to CM position and for free, I think he’ll perform amazingly! Very optimistic to finally make Ceballos the player that we always though he would be!

Not many deals from the main team, only Ramos and Aursnes. Ramos, for that price, I think was very good and helped us buying some of the names I said before and also some wonderkids (regens, they say). Aursnes.. Do you know when you want to sell one player, but you don’t want to offer because he will lose some value? And you start to accept that you will keep him? We sold that player! And such a good deal. He is good, yes, but generic! And that money helped us having more money in the bank and a comfort pillow if we need to do a last minute deal or some amazing wonder kid shows up. So 4 players came in, 2 came out, that +2 will make a difference I believe.

This is our UCL group! Will be good to face Liverpool as we want to test out the team and see the improvements that we've done! Also, Salzburg and Hoffenheim deserve a lot of respect. Not easy at all to play in Germany and we’ll need to be aware of that. But no excuses allowed! Let’s go to Round of 16 and also try the 1st spot in the group!

And also, the way we started the season! As you can see, pretty well! And the 4-3-3 has been doing well, the changes that we’ve been doing are starting to show up and that system has become more direct and not so ball possession!

Mid Season (23/24)

So, we are at the 5th of January and I will make you a long story short about how has been our season!

So, these were our results until today! As you can see, amazing results but, to be honest, kinda disappointed with some of our performances. The individual made the difference and not the team, which made me thinking about some tactical instructions. For example, some games ended up with same clear and half chances for both teams, but at the end we won 5-2. As a fan, you can be happy. As a coach, that’s not good at all, as you should be way better. Don’t get me wrong, we have an average 3.42XG to score and and 1.09XG to concede, we have been way better, but some performances got me thinking. What I’ve been thinking, and I tried in the last two league games, is to have the IF in Support duty and not Attacking duty. Why? Because we are abusing too much on the deep and long passes and with some teams parking up the bus we haven't been able to play in another way. With support duty, I think we will have more options, or the IF receive the ball between the lines, or they try a run behind the defensive line, and not only deep runs! These last two games we created a total of 10 clear chances and 14 half chances, which is really good! Think I’m gonna continue to try this new variations and I’ll let you know!

Same thing happen here. Some good results but poor performances. Specially against Liverpool! At home we over respected them, and first half was horrible. Second half better, but still, if we want to step up we need to do way way more! Away they were way better again, but at least I was ready for that and a 4-2 is an acceptable result for us! Against Salzburg and Hoffenheim we did our job! Chelsea, I think we have good chances and, for real, really think that we have kind of an obligation here! We won both games against them last season (2-0 and 6-2), of course they improved (Maddison, Todibo and Gabriel Barbosa) but so did we! Looking forward to that round!

The second goat (if Messi didn't perform like he's been doing in the world cup I was ready to change my mind...) has been brutal for us!! League, 10 (3) 21G and 6A, Champions, 4(2) 3G and 1A, what a phenom (the other goals are cup’s goals!)!! Ronaldo scores from everywhere and with both feet, amazing! And with the head, brutal. What a signing and really really excited about him! Also, he already dedicated us some POTM awards, which is really nice (not easy to deal with him!) and Benfica is starting to show up on his favorite teams (is so good, because he was formed in our biggest rival, Sporting)! So happy about him! Martinelli has been injured the whole time, already lost 3.5 months of the season, which is a lot, but Ceballos is starting to be the Ceballos we always known! He and Enzo Fernandez are such a good pair! Matheus Cunha is taking baby steps too and has become better and more confident in the last few games (7.60 average last 5 games, 3G 1A). The other players, you already know! Henrique Araújo, Morato and António Silva are the future (and now, the present) of this club!

To finish, gonna show you two wonderkids (not regens) that I want to bet during the rest of the season and also two regens that are getting me excited! These 4 players I think will also be the future and I hope they can perform in the present as well (despite the fact the two regens are really young)!

Market and Rest of the season plans

Winter market it's always tough for us, as our best players have a lot of demand from the biggest clubs and of course, they want to leave. Key players that we won't sell: Enzo Fernandez, Martinelli, Morato, António Silva and Henrique Araújo. We want to try to build the future around these players so we wanna keep them real hard. We renewed with António and Morato so they won’t be a problem, also Martinelli at the moment doesn’t have any club considering him. Henrique Araújo and Enzo will be harder to keep, but I think we will make it.
Players we accept to sell: João Victor (10M), Ristic (11M), João Mário (30M) and Musa (6M).
We don’t have any specific target but with that money we would buy a good LB and also a good ST. Some names in our main list but until sell them we won’t make any proposal! Also, always having an eye on some good wonderkids! We want to build the future right now!

Rest of the season:
1) League: Try to win the league with no defeats and also a lot of goals scored! We want Ronaldo to break another record, by the way. 40 goals is our main goal for him!
2) Cups: Of course we will play to win, but we want to use those 4 players that I showed in the previous post. Taking baby steps with them is gonna be huge for our future!
3) Champions League: Beat Chelsea and then let’s see. Semi-finals we would love, to start to getting closer to the final. We hope that in 2 years we will make it.