To think how hopeful everyone was before the season began, and now, we are all thankful that the nightmare is over.

Not everyone wanted Jorge Jesus back at Benfica. In all honesty, I preferred many others over him, for many different reasons. Despite that, when JJ returned, I felt that given how poorly Benfica ended the 2019/20 season, the former Flamengo manager may have been the best available option for immediate results… holy sh*t I was wrong.

He knew the club, he knew the league, and let’s not forget he’s the winningest manager in the club’s history. With the rumors of a divided locker room, senior players throwing in the towel to get Bruno Lage sacked and much more, JJ seemed to have the perfect recipe to sort out the circus.

If the pressure was already at a high after the complete meltdown last season, JJ’s ego and his mouth took that pressure to the damn moon during his presentation speech.

I don’t even need to reference anything else he mentioned in that speech. That statement alone sticks out like Gabriel does in our midfield, and it’s not for good reasons.

As João said Thursday on our Portuguese Podcast, after that presentation speech from JJ, even his biggest doubters believed he could turn things around. There was no possible way we could play as poorly as we did to end last season.

While we may not have played as poorly, the outcome was essentially the same, but worst, depending how you look at it.

Having made the largest investment in the club’s decorated history, even league history for that matter, the output was catastrophic, disastrous, unacceptable, embarrassing… and the list goes on.

We didn’t even guarantee our spot in next season’s Champions League Group Stage, fell flat on our face in the Taça da Liga, pissed down our leg in the Supertaça, and with all of that, our destiny in the Taça de Portugal was highly anticipated. Whenever there was the possibility for something to go wrong, it did.

So where do we go from here? We have a manager and coaching staff who make so much money it’ll make your eyes water, a handful of players who aren’t cut out to be on the reserves let alone the senior team, and a president who has managed to drag the club’s name through the biggest pile of mud you’ve ever seen.

The spotlight on the decision makers is as big as it’s ever been. You can’t spend that kind of money during a pandemic where income is limited, and essentially fail every single objective that was defined in the pre-season.

Even after all of the negative truths stated above, I have to believe that there is more JJ than we saw this season.

Regardless of your opinion of him, no one can deny that his arrival at the club years ago not only transformed Benfica, but also our opponents. While he had his fair share of failures, he also gave many of us the ability to celebrate with a frequency that only some of the older generations could recall.

It’s a common saying that no one remembers second place, and that’s true, but let us not forget that he won many domestic titles, and got us to two European Finals. I would much rather lose in the final, than not even get there.

JJ is far too competitive to accept the year he just had, at least I think he still is. He knows what the expectations are of Benfica fans, and now it’s up to him to show us that him, his coaching staff and the squad are capable of much more than what we just witnessed.