Luisão: “Benfica do not look at the names of their opponents”

Benfica, the only Portuguese representative in the Europa League, will face the Croatians of Dinamo Zagreb in the competition's round of 16. Luisão warns of "another difficult opponent" that the Reds have ahead of them.

“It is a team that sits first in the Croatian league and we know that they made an excellent group stage of the Europa League. In the last match, they believed until the end, managed to through to the next round and now we will face another difficult opponent”, claimed the former player and Benfica’s representative in the draw held at UEFA’s headquarters in Nyon, in Switzerland.

Luisão rejects the idea that the team coached by  Bruno Lage could look at the tie with more optimism for having avoided teams like Chelsea, Inter, Sevilla or Arsenal.

“From my experience in football, I don’t believe in that. We are going to work a fight to clinch the qualification. Benfica do not look at the names of their opponents to see if they are closer to a possible qualification or not”, he explained.

It is worth remembering that the first match will be player in Croatia on March 7 and the second leg takes place at Estádio da Luz one week late, on March 14 (Thursday).

Text: Filipa Fernandes Garcia

Pics: Archive / SL Benfica