Honestly, I think this is a hard game to take any conclusions from. We were already qualified, pretty sure mathematically guaranteed as top of the group, and against the 200th-ranked team in the world, so this really was no more than a friendly game where the only real stakes were the possibility for 9/9 wins in Euro qualifiers (a first for us). We got the job done and Martínez got to do some experimentation... even if his changes were bizarre, to say the least.
That said, we were on autopilot all game long, apart from a few stretches. CR7 and Cancelo were game, Félix had a good moment or two (outside of the many missed attempts), otherwise the team just kinda slogged through. Gonçalo Ramos had a shambles performance, but in fairness to him, pretty much nobody really showed up.
For fuck's sake. This was embarrassing on an extraordinary level.
I'll give them credit: they came in guns ablaze, were able to press and force errors Inter's B side effectively, leading to three goals in 30+ minutes. João Mário, for all his defects as a player (slow, doesn't press, loses 1v1 easily), had his finishing on point, and Casper Tengstedt's aggressive pressing was the closest thing we've had to Gonçalo Ramos all season. Florentino was beastly in recovering balls and the team just seemed solid.
Then, Inter actually woke up. From before the first half, they started actually kicking into gear, pressing hard on the midfield, occupying and crowding spaces easily and giving our players no chance of progression. At halftime, I thought the momentum was changing. Sure enough, 3-3 by the 80th minute. And Schmidt did nothing to invert that. He's a horrendous, horrendous game reader. He has his tactic that works well against apathic teams or weaker teams, but when his players don't collaborate and/or when the opposition actually has tactical ideas to counter this, Benfica is useless.
To this, no help was given by Rafa and Di María, who, as per usual, did nothing. No pressing, no running, no winning duels, nothing, which is inexcusable in a 4-2-3-1 formation. Di María's apathy punished Benfica's right flank yet again, and DiMarco was lethal when he came on. The midfield was bossed, the team never got a big chance again, basically, Inter went from embarrassed to a bar away from a 4-3 comeback.
Schmidt will never get past this, because we keep running into these situations and he still keeps making the same mistake over and over. His stubbornness is severe enough that he refuses to acknowledge that his tactic isn't a one size fits all, and that he needs to give different players a chance, especially when the team is losing ground on field. I'm sure that losing key players like Enzo, Grimaldo and Ramos was a blow, as is the lack of inspiration that some of last year's protagonists have rn, and sure that we made some horrible transfers this year (Jurásek and Arthur Cabral were big miscasting issues), but it can't all be blamed on an underperforming team. The issue is to the core of this team, and until we start taking our sporting seriously and not just as a stepping stone for our SAD to make money, it'll never change.
For now, all I'm left with is the tremendous disappointment of blowing a 3-0 lead at home in a Champions game and seeing our chances to continue in Europe dwindle.
TL;DR: fuck Roger Schmidt and fuck Rui Costa.