The Ball – “I trusted Schmidt to clean up Jesus’ work” (Benfica)

Antonio Pacheco was one of the great references of the 80’s and 90’s, played for Portimonense and Benfica, among others, and opens his heart in an interview with A BOLA. He talks about current events at Benfica, a club he has been a member of for 36 years, praises Rui Costa, Roger Schmidt and Antonio Silva and goes back in time to remember the pistols, magic and acid in the matches against FC Porto in Antas. .

– How do you live this Portimonense-Benfica, when there is little left for the end of the championship, in Portimão?
Conversations about the game are normal and the fact is that people also gave up trying to get to the stadium early because they easily realized that all the tickets were sold out. The orgasm was more intense a few days ago.

– And how does the Benfica team suffer from this anxiety?
– This pressure, this anxiety, this euphoria… They are all more external than internal. Players take this for granted. They understand the responsibility of the moment, but being a Benfica player is just that: having to face all the matches naturally and calmly because they are always games to win, whatever they may be. The experience that players gain in big clubs allows them to manage emotional moments well.

– What was the atmosphere that you found in Luz in the matches that you watched in the presidential box?
– President [Luís Filipe] Vieira did [convites], not always in the presidential fund. narrated [Costa] He now chose to bring former players and former teammates, the club’s glories, to the presidency box. It gives me the feeling that Roy feels good next to people who respect and love him.

– You played with Rui Costa and now how do you see him as president?
– I will not talk about him as a player because everyone knows what he is. President Rui Costa, fortunately for Portuguese football, is a breath of fresh air because, quite frankly, I stopped playing 22 years ago and that’s always more than I saw in the ’70s and ’80s. [Costa] He manages to promote the return of people who know how to respect football, and that they apply to join clubs.

In the first year with a foreign coach, Benfica can be champions.
– In my opinion, it was necessary to have a coach from the outside at that time, when it would be good. He has no interest in watching those TV shows of people talking about football and having no idea about the football space. There is a series of filters for communication to reach him, and if he advises him well, he does not waste time on things that do not interest him and the focus is greater. He had some confidence in it [Roger Schmidt] Even to clean up the old habits that were there from the previous Portuguese coaches, in this particular case more than [Jorge] Jesus, because Jesus is not just a coach, he is also everything around him and this destroys the essential business of football clubs. For all that, I think that in this respect Benfica benefits a lot from the arrival of a foreign coach and this coach in particular. Benfica needed a coach who came from outside, which is where Schmidt came from.

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