João Noronha Lopes defends a sporting project based on “stability, identity and ambition”, in contrast to the current “sports mismanagement”, and expressed confidence that José Mourinho will guide Benfica to the national football title this season.
“It is necessary to have a sporting project and not have sporting mismanagement. Rui Costa’s sporting mandate reveals a total lack of planning and a total lack of organization in Benfica’s football, with five coaches in four years and a carousel of players in which, on average, 12 or 13 players come and go per year”said the candidate for the October 25 elections, in an interview with Lusa.
The 59-year-old manager recalls that, last year, “Bruno Lage starts the season with the squad chosen by Roger Schmidt, who is fired on the fourth day”the same happening this year, in which Mourinho inherits “a squad that was not chosen by him, but was chosen by Bruno Lage”.
“My sporting project is a very clear project. Firstly, stability. People know exactly the roles they play in a long-term project and are aligned on this point. Secondly, identity. Benfica has to have an identity that goes through the training and the players that come from abroad. And secondly, much more ambition. I cannot admit that a Benfica president celebrates qualifying for the Champions League as one of the most exciting moments of his life”he emphasized.
After running in the 2020 elections, in which he lost to Luís Filipe Vieira, Noronha Lopes even says that, now, he cannot find “any list with a football project as detailed” as his and in which he believes José Mourinho will be immediately successful.
“It’s good for Benfica to have one of the best coaches in the world. I’m going to sit down with José Mourinho, present him my project and tell him that I want to be champion with him this year. What I want at the moment is to win, to play well and Mourinho is the right coach for that. I have the deep conviction that, with the structure that I will put at Mourinho’s disposal, we will be champions this year”he said.
Noronha Lopes is confident that the presence on its list of Nuno Gomes, as vice-president for football, Pedro Ferreira, as general director, and Tomás Amaral, as responsible for scouting, will be able to guarantee “a combination of training to win and intelligent scouting” to start “a winning project for Benfica’s football”.
Furthermore, he revealed that he will “make an unprecedented financial investment in training” – not only for the players but also for the coaches – in order to “create conditions for players to stay at Benfica for more than a year”.
According to the candidate, “players have to succeed at Benfica before succeeding abroad” and resorted to the case of João Neves, “who could have stayed at Benfica for another year and then could have left”, but ended up being “sold urgently and not as a result of any strategy”.
“All the players will leave Benfica one day, the good players, that’s inevitable. But João Neves leaves out of necessity for 60 million euros and the following year we have 130 million euros to spend on reinforcements. I know we are in an election year, but there is something here that doesn’t add up. Benfica cannot be the best club to form, the quickest to sell and the worst to sign”pointed.
Although he considers it necessary to “create decent conditions for the training and preparation of the players” of the women’s football team, the manager considered that Benfica “has the conditions to have European ambitions”, and, to achieve these goals, it will be “fundamental” to create “a scouting department for women’s football as well”.
In the pavilion modalities, the “erratic management” of the club’s directors “has not yielded results”, so the ‘eagles’ need “a new organization, more transparency and more ambition”, after last season the club had “won just over 30% of the titles in dispute in the men’s category”, contrary to the “good results in the women’s modalities”.
“There has to be a change of mentality, a much greater focus on training. There are sports that haven’t won in 17 years, such as handball, and there are others in which Benfica has to compete systematically to win a European title, such as futsal and roller hockey”assessed, before pointing out the need to “improve the experience” in the pavilions: “Benfica cannot have 400 thousand members and then have 400 people in the pavilion”.
In addition to João Noronha Lopes, the current president, Rui Costa, the previous president, Luís Filipe Vieira, as well as João Diogo Manteigas, Martim Mayer and Cristóvão Carvalho are running for the election on October 25th, with a list led by João Leite at the General Assembly Board.
If none of the candidates receives the majority of votes (50%), a second round will be held between the two most voted candidates, two weeks later, on November 8th.