Benfica prep: Tondela leave Bruno Lage with plenty to ponder | OneFootball

Bruno Lage is facing a tough problem to solve. Benfica went to Turkey to face Fenerbahçe in the first leg of the Champions League play-off and only arrived in Lisbon on Thursday night, August 21. Now, the Reds are set to play again on Saturday, August 23, and thus, have only one day to fine-tune their strategy for the match against Tondela.

After the match against Fenerbahçe, Benfica decided to stay in Turkey for one more night to avoid a long return journey and conducted their physical recovery training at the Besiktas training center in Istanbul, and therefore, only arrived in Lisbon the day after the match, after sunset.

In this way, Bruno Lage has only one day to fine-tune the strategy for the match against Tondela and it will be on this Friday, August 22, the day before the match. Even so, Benfica has no room to relax, as they will again have little preparation time between the third round and the second leg of the Champions League play-off, to be played on August 27, at Luz.

The Reds kicked off the season on July 31, in Algarve, in the Super Cup final against Sporting. Since then, and in just 20 days, they have already played five official matches. Even so, Benfica had to request the postponement of the first round with Rio Ave, which would take place between the third preliminary round of the Champions League.

This time, postponement is not an option, and Bruno Lage will have to manage the short training and rest period between matches well. The Benfica coach had already warned that the start of the season would be complicated: "We are doing a pre-season with official matches". Remember that there was little holiday granted to the players who participated in the Club World Cup.

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