Benfica coach Roger Schmidt makes no secret of the fact that he feels a bit sorry that his team were unable to get anything better out of the first leg of their Champions League quarterfinal tie against Inter on Tuesday.
Speaking in a press conference, as reported by FCInterNews, the German coach looked back at the 2-0 loss at the hands of the Nerazzurri at the Estadio da Luz, which leaves his team’s hopes of reaching the semifinals of Europe’s top club competition in significant doubt.
Going into Tuesday’s match, there was a lot of reason for Schmidt and his team to be hopeful.
The Aguias had been one of the outstanding teams in all of the Champions League, having not yet lost a match in the competition including in group stage clashes with the likes of Juventus and Paris Saint-Germain.
Whilst the Portuguese league leaders did give a good account of themselves for long periods and certainly gave Inter a good match, they were not able to find the back of the net for all their pressure.
Goals in the second half by Nicolo Barella and Romelu Lukaku gave the Nerazzurri a crucial advantage heading into the second leg of the tie at the San Siro next week.
For Benfica, on the other hand, there is a mountain to climb over in Milano, and it is not necessarily what they will have expected going into Tuesday’s match.
“On Tuesday the players were fresh and still managed to create chances,” the coach said.
“We can trust all the players, even the players who’re on the bench are playing well, like Morato or Gilberto.”
“They haven’t played as much, but they’re still standing up and being counted.”
“On Tuesday, we needed goals and so I trusted all of the players who had started and just put on Neres,” Schmidt added, “I was sorry that we lost.”
