“Being benfica is not an option, it is a feeling”

This Saturday is not a derby. Benfica and Sports They reached points on the championship’s penultimate day’s penultimate day, and the Status gives light It will shower a classic aroma at the end. To prelude in a possible title for one of two great Lisbon, António Simõeshistorical figure of BenficaIn an interview with Mundo Deportivo, remember that “being of Benfica This is not a choice, it is a feeling. “The champion of Europe In 1962 he insisted that the Club’s Mystique should be preserved and transmitted, especially to quarry players, knowing the weight of the shield they carry in the chest.

You played a lot of classics between benfica and sports in your career. What does this Portuguese football classic represent for you? And does he feel that the derby now has the same emotional weight he has in his time?

“I think it is necessary to clarify. When I talk about a subject, but it has two parts. The derby is called like this. But why? Because there is a story between the two clubs, both of LisbonAnd that is why they were given a “or derby” assignment, which is always emotional weight. It is the largest Portuguese derby and one of the richest in the world, such as River Plate – Boca Juniors. Without a doubt, it is constant emotion, all the laws given to the greatness of the great game, which is the feelings of all, let’s say it. They may not be from clubs, but they are football, and this match is a football match that moves everyone. There are those who will not see it, but they expect to know the result.

There are those who come to one side, the other on the other. That’s a part, but emotional weight is more than fans. This is more of the partners than the players. Now you have a costume with 5, 6, 7 different nationalities. What do they know about the derby? What moves it? As it happened when the team consisted of only Portuguese? No. Do you mean that this is a discrimination attitude? Ni. This is just the truth of the facts. Does it call a person’s professionalism? No, but it certainly doesn’t have the same emotional weight as they were when they were Portuguese. Fans, the yes, keep everything. And it is more emotional to see an entire stadium and see a portion of divided people well within the field, where players play for their professionalism and the dedication that their profession demands. But not in the emotional aspect. “

If so, we can expand it to quarry boys who, in the case of benfica, are that -the famous ‘Mystical of Benfica’. I talk about António Silva, Tiago Araújo, João Neves who are no longer there. They went through the formation of benfica and knew what these derbies were playing, they knew what it meant to be Benfica’s champion, the weight the shield had, the shirt. The same applies to other clubs, within every reality, naturally.

“Exactly! That’s why I speak within this concept what it looks like today. These young players are society’s product. They have the virtues and defects that this society gives them: the delivery [en el campo]. Who passed by him BenficaAt a young age, with quality, what ‘demands’ is all, when they have a responsibility in the training area, that you need to explain to all that it is perfectly compatible to be professional, earn good money and like a game of many and like the club where one is born. All of that is compatible, beyond that, it’s more than compatible. Like a game and like a club, where you play, it also helps to play better. And for that, it is necessary that adults, the elders, the coaches, the leaders, all those who work in the club, know how to bring that message. Without hypocrisy. Without a liar. No. They talk to them the truth and tell them the greatness of the club and the club history. The club deserves it and demands that each one has a moral attitude toward the club they represent.

I remember, for example, a phrase from Gilberto, a right side of Brazil passing through Benfica between 2020 and 2022. Three periods ago, where FC Porto was champion, Benfica went to play Paços de Ferreira, in a game just to meet the calendar. There is a video of her before the match telling the locker room: “The game is not interested, the shirt we wear is interested.”

Exactly. This is itself. It’s compatible. Do not mix things, no, they do not believe to be equal, meaningless. For a young man who wants to make a professional career, it should even be a privilege to play at a club in the dimension of the world. See how good it is. I like to play, I want to have a ball. I have a vice in making a career. I have that ambition to me, I have everything and I am in Benfica. See how good it is. Awesome -wonderful! And I had that experience in 15 years, when I went Benfica. 15 years, I left there with 31st. Oysters, how are you not from the club? I usually say that anyone who passed by was caught. I was caught. That’s why I said that being Benfica This is not a choice, it is a feeling.