After a short term hiatus from club management, Bruno Lage has returned to the dugout of a team he knows well in one of Portugal and in fact Europe’s most historic teams; SL Benfica.
Lage joined the Portuguese side for the third time having worked as a youth coach from 2004 to 2012. He was then an assistant coach to Carlos Carvalhal in his spells at Swansea City and Sheffield Wednesday before returning to Benfica in 2018 as the head coach of Benfica B.
In January of 2019, he was promoted to first team head coach and just three days after his appointment, guided his new team to a 4 - 2 win over Rio Ave. Eight days later, Lage was appointed first-team manager on a permanent basis.
Lage was more willing to include academy prospects in his Benfica team and this brought success to the two-time European champions.
One such example of this was to start Joao Felix in the first team, who was a revelation in Lage’s first game as first team manager. Moreover, he deployed a 4-4-1-1 lineup in which adhered to the strengths of the clubs attacking ability.
This brought major success to Benfica. Lage led Benfica to the biggest Primeira Liga winning margin since 1964; his side also broke a 54-year-old record by thrashing lowly Nacional 10 - 0.
After 18 wins from 19 games, including a 2 - 1 derby victory over Porto, Lage recovered the Lisbon-based side's seasons, winning the league title, undefeated since the Portuguese had taken over.
Lage's first new season with Benfica started just as well, with a statement 5 - 0 derby win over Sporting CP in the Super Cup.
The form continued in the league as well, with a victory away to Tondela on the 27th October securing Lage's 25th win in just 27 games, the fastest of any manager in Primeira Liga history; he'd also won every away game to that point.
Despite this wonderful start to the title defence, Benfica's season somewhat derailed in the second half of the campaign.
By June 2020, Benfica had won just 2 of 13 matches, including a run of five games without a win at home.
Lage's side lost out to Porto in the league and, having finished 3rd in their Champions League group, were beaten by Shakhtar Donetsk in the knockout stages of the Europa League.
After his first spell at Benfica, Bruno Lage was approached by Wolverhampton Wanderers. Having gaining his British work placement, Wolves adapted an attacking style of play which was labelled ‘Bruno-ball’.
In doing so, Wolves were able to penetrate and dominate many sides, with the Portuguese manager’s side beating Tottenham away, doing the double over local rivals Aston Villa, going unbeaten against Chelsea and most noticeably, beating Manchester United 1 - 0 at Old Trafford, in which Lage blew a kiss into the camera afterwards.
His second season however failed to mirror that of the first, getting sacked after a 2-0 away loss to West Ham United in which the club was left 18th in October.
After almost a year’s absence from management, Lage was appointed manager of Botafogo, after Luis Campos left the club to manage Al-Nassr.
His appointment coincided with in a change of fortune for the Brazilian club, as despite being appointed when the club were 15 points clear at the top of the league with less than half of the season remaining, Lage was sacked after three months in charge where he placed several points behind Palmeiras in 3rd place; Botafogo finished the season in 5th.
However, his return to management in Portugal has resulted in an upturn to his club's success. Since replacing German manager Roger Schmidt in a shocking sacking, Lage has won all six matches.
This includes a very impressive 4 - 0 home victory over Atletico Madrid in the Champions League, a side ‘As Águias’ had never beaten at home. In this match, Benfica had an xG of 4.46, where they had 19 shots in total, with ten of those on target.
Coupled with a hard-earned away win in Serbia against Crvena Zvezda, Benfica are third in the League Phase a quarter of the way through the revamped stage of the competition.
So, what can we expect from Lage? Can we expect ‘Bruno-ball’ to coincide with another league title win? Or is this a facade with a new manager bounce suddenly wearing off.
One thing that is clear is the depth of talent that is available for Lage to utilise.
With players with experience such as Ángel Di Maria, and promising youngsters such as Álvaro Fernández, Alexander Bah and most promising of all, Antonio Silva, there is much expectation for the Lisbon based side to challenge for what would be their 39th league title.
What is evident though is that the fans and club should be supportive of their returning manager, who is undoubtedly steering Benfica in the right direction once again.
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