Maria Martins wants greater intensity from Benfica against Santa Luzia
SL Benfica host Santa Luzia on Saturday, 17 October, at 7pm, at the Pavilhão nº 2 da Luz, in a Matchday 4 fixture of the first phase of the Liga Feminina Placard.
Maria Martins, coach of the national champions, set out the priorities for the clash: greater intensity, greater efficiency in winning the ball back and a response worthy of the responsibility of playing at home.
As for the opponent, the coach points to the Azorean side’s completely renewed squad and the difficulty that represents: “Let’s hope it stays that way, with no goals scored in the league after Saturday’s game. But it is a completely new team, and I think the fact that they have no goals also comes from that. The squad is all new, and there is not a single player who played regularly last season. That is also a difficulty for us, in terms of analysis and knowing the players’ individual characteristics, because not many of them had played in our league before. There are many foreign players who came from the Brazilian league and we are still somewhat unfamiliar with them. Despite the three games they have already played in the league, it is not a team we know very well, but we have to focus essentially on ourselves. After the result we had against Porto Salvo, we have to focus on what we need to improve. We have to be able to defend even better, win back more balls in the offensive half, and also improve in the 4x0 attacking situation, in which we were not very competent in the game against Porto Salvo and should have been more.”
The international break affected preparation, with seven players on duty with the Portugal and Italy national teams, as well as Andreza Queiroz with Brazil. Martins talks about how she managed the week’s work: “It is a new challenge for me too, because I have never been in a team with so many players representing their national teams. Of the 14 players, seven were representing the Portuguese or the Italian national team. We will also be missing one player, Andreza, who is with the Brazilian national team. So it is almost a recovery week for the players. We trained on Monday and the players essentially did recovery work. And now, yes, we prepare the game.”
On playing at home and the responsibility of representing Benfica, the coach leaves a clear message: “Now we have two games in a row at home, against Santa Luzia and against Novasemente. That is a factor in our favour. We don’t have to travel. Imagine if we had to travel to Viana do Castelo after these intense weeks of training, national team duty and games. It would be even more complicated for us. We have only played at home once so far. We have to give a different image from the one we left against Torreense. We have to show that we are a team happy to be playing at home. I think we did not do it with the responsibility we have. We have to be a very intense team, always, from start to finish, because we are representing this club. There are people who come to watch us on purpose. They travel, they leave their homes to see our team, and they are nobody’s relatives. And we have to respect that to the maximum. And that demands our greatest effort. It is good that we have the game at home to give a different image and to avoid so much wear and tear.”