Benfica - Poltava Preview

Benfica will play their first leg of a playoff that grants them access to the newly renamed Europa league tonight against Ukraine's Poltava. Not very much is known about Poltava except that their access came via winning the Ukrainian Cup. For Benfica this could be a tricky game, besides not knowing much about their opponent, the importance of not underestimating a team whose last European appearance came 10 years ago, is capital. Benfica needs to take this game into the Ukraine with the playoff already resolved, and for that they will need to take this game with the utmost seriousness.

JJ should field the following 11:
Quim in goal. Amorim, Luisao, Sidnei and David Luiz in the back. Javi Garcia, Dimaria, Coentrao and Aimar in the midfield. Saviola and Cardozo. But I wouldn't rule out Shaffer on the left side of the defense.

Despite making the game roster and being healthy enough to play, Ramires will most likely start on the bench and be an option.
With 19 players being on the game roster, one player will not dress, that choice can very well fall on Keirrison, as JJ called 5 forwards for this game.

The issue with Keirrison is not that he is not good enough, or not better than the other 4 forwards, the issue is that out of the other forwards he is the forward with the least team time.
Weldon(jj's first choice off the bench), who had joined the team a bit before Keirrison, has the fact that he has not only played in the Portuguese league before, but he has also played for JJ before, and he is very familiar with JJ's concepts.
At this time Keirrison is the player with the least amount of experience playing for JJ. He needs time to assimilate ideas and gather playing routines.
I don't expect him to remain the fourth choice for too long, but we also have to take into consideration his qualities and where he is the most useful in the attacking line as JJ's choice criteria.

An easy game on paper needs to be just as easy on the field, surely Poltava will play very defensively, in the style we saw Maritimo play, we will need to find solutions to penetrate and as I have said before, finish this playoff in Lisbon.