Roger Schmidt calls up Marcos Leonardo for Benfica’s challenge against Sporting Braga

Striker Marcos Leonardo, hired by Benfica after the transfer market restarted, will be called up for the Portuguese Cup match against Sporting de Braga, coach Roger Schmidt said on Tuesday.

“The easiest way to integrate him is to always be very close to the team, which is why he is in the squad for tomorrow.” [quarta-feira]. We know he won’t be able to play at first, not many minutes, but it’s good for him to be with the team and we’ll see how the game goes and if he can get some minutes,” the coach said at a press conference in Seixal.

The Brazilian, hired from Santos, arrived after “four weeks without training”, but in the first three days of working with the new team he left a “good impression” on the coach, so Schmidt’s plan is to start giving him as much playing time as possible. as much as possible.

“This will be our approach over the next two weeks. Give him a lot of training and also a lot of individual work to restore his fitness, and also give him as many minutes as possible with the team if possible,” the German said.

Thus, the first opportunity for the Reds to strengthen themselves to show themselves to the fans and technical team depends on how the match in the 1/8 finals of the Portuguese Cup against the opponent who knocked out Benfica last season turns out.

Benfica had already beaten Minho’s side this season 1-0 in a Portuguese First League match, but Schmidt recalled that Cup matches are always “special” because “one of the teams will be left out” and stressed that every match – this is a new beginning.

“We won’t lose because we lost last year and we won’t win because we won two weeks ago. It’s always a new game. Tomorrow”. [quarta-feira] Everything starts from scratch, and if we want to reach the next round, we must earn it with a good performance,” he said.

Regarding the absence of injuries, the coach admitted that he is not “100% sure” how long it will take for Juan Bernat to recover, but expressed confidence in the remaining three players who have been transferred to the care of the medical department.

“I am very optimistic about David Neres and Alex Ba that they will be back within two to three weeks and will be ready to be an option for the team and Kasper. [Tengstedt] perhaps at the end of the month,” he said.

On Wednesday, Benfica will host Sporting Braga in the last 16 of the Portuguese Cup, which kicks off at 20:45 at the Estádio da Luz in Lisbon, with Nuno Almeida (Algarve) refereeing.

To reach this stage of the competition, the team led by Roger Schmidt, ranked second in the I League, defeated Lusitania dos Azores (4-1, away) from the Portuguese championship and Famalican (2-0, home) in the third round ), I League, in the next round.

Sporting Braga, who remain in fourth place in the league, six points behind the Reds, beat Rebordoça (2-0, away) from the Portuguese championship in the third round and Portimonense (4-1, at away), from the first division, in the fourth round of the competition.