Benfica President Luis Filipe Vieira has accepted the resignation of manager Bruno Lage after the club suffered another devastating defeat at the hands of Maritimo earlier today. Benfica now sits six points behind league leaders FC Porto who defeated Pacos Ferreira also today and see their title hopes fade with five league games remaining and Porto holding the tiebreaker. Lage has been unable to right the clubs ship over the past few months amid the long break in between due to the world's current COVID-19 pandemic with the club having earned only eleven points in their last ten games of a possible thirty, with many of the dropped points coming against league minnows.
Benfica travel over the ocean to Madeira to take on Maritimo in their Week 29 encounter as the squad continues to try to find their form in what is slowly turning into a lost season and championship after falling behind Porto by three points after a stunning home loss to Santa Clara in Week 28.
Benfica will be without Ruben Dias and Gabriel due to yello card accumulation and Taarabt due to injury. Benfica
will
play Maritimo tomorrow at 6pm WEST
and
they will dress 20 players from the list below.
Keepers- Vlachodimos, Mile Svilar, Ivan Zlobin
Defenders- Tomas Tavares, Jardel, Ferro, Nuno Tavares, Andre Almeida, Morato
Midfielders- Chiquinho, Pizzi, Franco Cervi, Rafa Silva, Samaris, Florentino, Julian Weigl, Zivkovic, Paulo Bernardo
Forwards- Carlos Vinicius, Jota, Dyego Sousa, Seferovic, Goncalo Ramos
Benfica fans can add the name of Luciano Spalletti as someone that could replace current manager Bruno Lage at the club. According to reports out of Italy's Calciomercato, the 61 year old former Inter Milan manager who has been unemployed since the end of last season is under consideration by Benfica after discussions with Marco Silva hit a snag. Spalletti who has also managed Italian sides Roma and Udinese, spent five seasons with Russian side Zenit St. Petersburg from December 2009 to March 2014 were he led the club to two Russian league titles. Benfica have also had the names of managers Leornardo Jardim and Luis Castro linked as other possible managerial options as the club works feverishly behind the scenes as they look to salvage the season before it is lost.
