Alessandro Circati has insisted that Benfica are coming to San Siro to try and win, in order to make an early statement in the Europa League.

Benfica replaced Jose Mourinho with Marco Silva in the summer, and they have made an almost perfect start to the new campaign. They have five wins from six in the league, scoring 21 times, while they netted 19 goals across their three Europa League play-off ties.

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One of the other summer additions was Circati, who left Serie A for the Portuguese capital. What is interesting is that he was linked with a move to Milan in the early days of August but for €40m. In the end, he joined Benfica for a figure widely reported to be less than half of that.

Circati attended a press conference alongside his coach Marco Silva at San Siro on the eve of the match against Milan. The questions and his responses are via MilanNews .

“Regarding the match, I’m sure it will be a very intense challenge, but both teams will approach it with the goal of getting a result and taking home points. It won’t be easy: we’re two great teams who both want to play football.

“Their players are definitely more experienced than I am, so it will simply be a great game of football. It’s still football, but we’ll take to the pitch to try and win and give everything we have.”

How much did Carlos Cuesta [Parma manager] help you?

“After the injury the previous year, it wasn’t easy. It was a season where I wanted to recover and prove, above all to myself, more than to others, what I could give on the pitch, managing to play as many games as possible.

“At the beginning of the season, I set myself a specific goal: I wanted to reach 30 appearances, and in the end, I made 31. So yes, I’m satisfied.”

“There’s a difference, I’ve felt it. When I arrived at Benfica, it was a slightly different world, not so much because of the club itself, but because of the mentality. Here, you play every game to win the league, the cup, or any other competition. In Italy, at Parma, the club’s objective is clearly to stay up.

“They’re two different situations: one team plays to win, the other to stay up. Consequently, the way you approach individual matches and the entire season changes.”