Benfica’s success highlighted several players. With the winter market approaching, the club’s president, Rui Costa, is already thinking about what he will do in January and guarantees that the transfer window “will bring inputs and outputs”, he told the newspaper A Bola. “Neither I nor anyone in Portuguese football is in a position to say that I will not sell anyone. On the one hand the clubs need it, on the other hand the players want it, because the truth is that we don’t live in the league with the greatest international football projection”.
The most famous name has been that of Enzo Fernández. After the recognition he achieved with the world champion title at the service of Argentina, the midfielder has been linked in recent days to English clubs such as Chelsea, Manchester United, Liverpool and Manchester City. Rui Costa confirmed that Enzo will only leave Benfica in January if a club exceeds the termination clause and is not sensitive to the president’s arguments. Rodrigo Pinho’s departure to Coritiba has already been confirmed and what is certain is that “other less used players will look for other paths”.
Amid the rumors and the surge of millions, Enzo has already returned to Seixal. But he is going to spend the New Year in Argentina.
Rui Costa seems like a satisfied man. The reds have yet to lose a match this season and the expectations of the fans have skyrocketed. The leader of the eagles chose Roger Schmidt to take over as the team’s coach and the bet, so far, has turned out to be the right one.
“I understood that Roger Schmidt could be the ideal interpreter to embody that breath of fresh air that Benfica needed”, explained the president of Benfica. The president of the Luz club explained the reason for choosing the German. “He was a coach I knew and who had been watching me since he eliminated us with Bayer Leverkusen. [na Liga dos Campeões] and against PSV, in 2021, despite having won, and well, the tie that opened the doors of the Champions League for us, I liked the Dutch style of play and I wanted my team to have it.”
After 28 matches, Benfica has a ratio of 23 wins and 5 draws and, in terms of goals, the record is 73 scored and 20 conceded. Even so, the comfort of the numbers does not leave Rui Costa alone. “If we win a game, we are going to be European champions and, if we lose, the house collapses. What I ask is that there be no euphoria, because we lead with progress, not with depression, if a less positive result appears. You need a balance and achieving it is the biggest challenge we have this season”.
Rui Costa admits adjustments to the Benfica squad and says that he will only sell if the clauses are broken
After the resignation of Luís Filipe Vieira as president of Benfica, Rui Costa took charge of the club’s destinies. After the disappointments of the 2021/22 season in which, despite everything, Benfica reached the quarterfinals of the Champions League, the current red leader remembers the moment when he took over the club’s destinies. “He was trying to prepare sportingly what he understood Benfica needed, taking the good things that were already done, because, in fact, there were many things well done, and changing what seemed less convenient in terms of sports policy”explains Rui Costa.
“The members and fans of Benfica do not count the millions that may be in the bank, what counts are the titles that the club wins” and then, in terms of football, the president of Benfica is far from having done his job, since he has not yet won any trophy. However, in sports, performance has improved. “I am a regular of the pavilions. The commitment we made to the modalities produced effects and made us want to say: ‘It worked!’ I confess that I feel great improvements, but Warning as I want a lot more as far as mentality goes.”
The position he currently holds is just one more chapter in Rui Costa’s life at Benfica. “I have never hidden that I would like to make a complete career at Benfica. First of all, the fans, then the ball boy, a youth squad player, a professional who went abroad, but always closely linked to the club, who returned to finish his career as a player, coach, president and, then, again what always I’ve been a supporter.”
Source: Observadora
