Benfica boss Marco SIlva has set out his side's stall ahead of their Europa League clash with Celtic on Thursday night.
Celtic face the biggest test of their season so far on Thursday night, heading to Lisbon to take on a Benfica side that played Champions League football and made it through the league phase only last season.
Benfica have already beaten heavyweights AC Milan in this competition this season, and they will next set their sites on a Celtic team that has struggled to compete with better sides so far this season.
The Bhoys blew a four-goal lead to LASK in their Champions League qualifier, and they have already lost to Ferencvaros in this competition. Benfica are a class or two above both of those teams, and playing away from home against them is a scary prospect.
And ahead of the game, their head coach, former Fulham boss Silva, has made it pretty clear that his team feel as though they have a realistic chance of winning this competition this season.
Oddly asked to define his team with a car brand, Silva replied: "I'm not going to get into car brand names, we can't. We have an agreement with one car brand and we can't go for others. I'll repeat what I said about us. I said at the time of the presentation that we had six games to prove whether or not we could be contenders for something important in this competition.
"We started on the wrong foot, it was widely reported and perhaps rightly so, but the reality is that since then we have been on a completely upward trajectory in the competition. We are in the league phase on merit, we started well, but until we prove that we can reach the final there is still a long way to go, a lot of work, many victories, many three points to be disputed.
"There are three, four, five big clubs much more accustomed to the Champions League than the Europa League, but that alone is not a sign of favouritism. We have to prove it step by step. For now, we are satisfied with the start, humble enough to understand that just by name alone it's not enough to get there. We have to prove game after game that we have great ambitions and that we want to reach the end."
One would imagine Silva is not including Celtic in that 'four or five big clubs' statement. The likely favourites to win this competition are Benfica, RB Leipzig, AC Milan and Juventus, but others like Marseille, Real Sociedad and AFC Bournemouth may feel as though they have an outside chance.
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