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| Wednesday, 10 March 2010 18:46 |
Jesus feels Marseille are no pushoverBenfica v Marseille preview The Europa League Round of Sixteen kicks off tomorrow night and the tie of the round, arguably, will go down at the Estadio da Luz as two of Europe's high fliers are set to do battle.
Benfica will host Marseille in the first leg and the Luz has not been a welcoming place for the opposition as the Aguias have scored a total of 17 goals at home, while only suffering one in five matches. But despite their impressive home form, Benfica boss Jorge Jesus had nothing but praise for his French counterparts, who easily disposed of FC Kobenhagen in the previous round, and doesn't think that his side will be able to repeat of any of their previous performances against OM. "Marseille arrived from the Champions League, in a group which included AC Milan and Real Madrid and they had some great results, despite not qualifying for the knockout stages," said Jesus exaltingly. "Marseille are a strong team with players who are points of references in various sectors, like Lucho who has great influence in the construction of their offence. Niang is very fast and strong in attack, and he is the leading goalscorer in the French championship. We are very familiar with Mareille as they are with Benfica." "With the quality of both teams, this match will be hard fought. With or without goals, the two teams have arguments to do so, here at the Luz or in Marseille (at the Velodrome). The team who commits the least amount of errors and who is better defensively will be the one who advances." Asked what would be his preferred result against the French juggernaut , Jesus stared at the reporter, smiled and said jokingly, "5-0." Follow all the action minute by minute with PortuGOAL's live text commentary by Marco Pereira |
The tie of the round for me has got to be Valencia-Werder Bremen. Two tactically sound teams and lots of talent on show.
Benfica are fourth favourites behind Liverpool, Juventus and Valencia. In fairness anyone of about 7 or 8 teams could win this competition. Liverpool and Juventus have been horrid this season so I think we will see someone different from those two winning it..