Julian Nagelsmann ha hailed his RB Leipzig side after they made a winning start to life back in the Champions League by beating Benfica on Tuesday.
Bundesliga table-toppers Leipzig headed to the Estadio da Luz in Lisbon for their opening European match full of confidence following their unbeaten start to the new domestic campaign and they claimed a 2-1 success thanks to a second-half brace from Timo Werner.
Haris Seferovic did pull a goal back for Benfica late on, but Leipzig held on for the victory which puts them in a strong position to reach the knockout stage of Europe’s premier club competition for the very first time.
Nagelsmann was certainly pleased with the victory and the way his side performed during the second half but felt they showed Benfica too much respect during the opening 45 minutes.
“The win feels good,” Nagelsmann told reporters. “We had a too much respect for them in the first half and our positioning was off. We talked about it at half time and then we had a great spell and got our goals.”
Leipzig have Bundesliga matches to come away at Werder Bremen and at home to Schalke before they return to Champions League action at the start of October when they welcome Lyon to the Red Bull Arena.
Nagelsmann feels Tuesday’s victory sets them up for what could be a crucial run of games over the coming weeks. “The victory at the start is extremely important – especially before the coming exhausting weeks ahead of us, which we are very happy about,” the 32-year-old added.
