Benfica: Many Changes, Yet Little Change in the End

There was a revolution in the match against Moreirense with only three starters remaining in the lineup, yet everything seems very similar to last season.

Diogo Spencer, 19 years old, a full-back, made his debut in the first team last Sunday. “Thank you, Benfica,” shared the youngster on social media, marking the realization of a dream. Spencer became the 32nd player utilized this season by Roger Schmidt. In the previous season, there were 37 different players used. Despite the revolution in the team against Moreirense at the Estádio da Luz, little has changed in the management of resources.

It was expected that the coach would rest some of the regular starters against Moreirense with an eye on the second leg of the Europa League quarter-finals against Marseille, which postponed its match this weekend and has a week to prepare for the showdown.

Even the Moreirense coach, Rui Borges, was surprised by the number of changes, as he himself acknowledged in a press conference. Only Alexander Bah, João Neves, and David Neres remained from the lineup that started consecutively against Sporting Lisbon twice and Marseille. Schmidt justified the revolution by emphasizing the need to give the usual starters some rest, and the changes began interestingly with the goalkeeper position, where Samuel Soares returned to the starting lineup five months and 26 days after his last appearance.

Despite so many changes, the truth is that, at its core, almost everything remains the same in terms of how the coach manages the squad.

With just five fewer games than last season, there is nearly the same number of players who played more than 50 percent of the total minutes on the field – 11 in the previous season and ten in the current one. Similarly, there is almost the same number of players who were utilized for more than 75 percent of the match time – 6 in the 2022/2023 season and five in the 2023/2024 season.