"There wasn't much work [to do], but the most important thing was trying to free them from the negative moment because, sometimes, people don't understand these things well," Mourinho said."
"The players suffer. Obviously, the coach who leaves is the one who suffers the most, but the players suffer the moment, the difficulty, they like to win."
"I told them that they had to, like players at a big club, enjoy the pressure, the responsibility. I didn't fully get that message across, but in the second half, I managed to instil in them high levels of confidence and ambition to win the game."
"At 3-0, the game is over. They're coming off a run, a Champions League match, and it's natural that they would have slowed down, but their ambition levels were high."
Jose Mourinho returned to Benfica as manager, marking 25 years since his first stint, and oversaw a 3-0 victory at Estadio Clube Desportivo das Aves. Heorhii Sudakov scored late in the first half, Vangelis Pavlidis converted a penalty after the break, and Franjo Ivanovic added a third. Mourinho focused on freeing players from a negative run and boosting their confidence and ambition in the second half despite limited preparation. He praised the squad's high ambition levels after a congested schedule. Benfica remained unbeaten in the league and sat second, five points behind Porto with a game in hand.
Read at Soccer News
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