Marco Silva was sure to not get ahead of himself after his first win back in the Primeira Liga.
Benfica played away at Casa Pia and obliterated their opponents 7-0 with a Vangelis Pavlidis hat-trick and first league goal for Jhon Duran.
The Eagles have already been winning in Europa League qualifying under Silva, but the hype took a knock when they drew their season opener 2-2 against Viseu.
The result gave champions FC Porto a 2-0 lead, and Silva isn’t getting too enthusiastic about the statement of intent.
Marco Silva speaks after Benfica 7-0 Casa Pia
“Congratulations are in order, but it’s only three points,” the former Fulham coach said.
“We had a bad result in the first round and it had nothing to do with attitude, quite the opposite.
“We had moments where we should have maintained focus and concentration.
“We don’t live on moral victories, I said that yesterday, but it wasn’t about attitude, but about focus and concentration that we must always keep alive.”
Benfica’s first match saw them play without fans at Estadio da Luz, and Silva pointed out that he felt the ban was unfair once again.
“We played away from home, but practically at home, the fans make the difference,” he said.
“They took that away from us in the first round, they took away the great strength of this club.”
Things then turned to hat-trick man Pavlidis who has been heavily linked with a departure since Duran’s arrival.
The Greek striker is attracting interest from Turkey, but Silva isn’t concerned.
Asked if he was afraid of a weekend of phone calls, he said: “I’m not afraid of anything at all, the market is open, we can receive calls and we can make them too, this is the time for that.
“It will be a very long season. We have to do our job on Thursday, it’s very important to be in the group stage, focus on the games and then Benfica’s structure is working for us.”
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