Benfica open camp for the 2021-22 season

Benfica officially opened camp today as the club looks to turn around their disappointing 2020-21 season, manager Jorge Jesus was the first person to arrive on campus at around 7am followed shortly after by members of his technical staff. Players were set to arrive for 8am WEST to begin their physicals and meetings. Benfica will open the season with an onset of games in August that will see the club play four league games and potentially four Champions League qualifier games if they are to make the group stage of UEFA's premier event. Benfica are awaiting reinforcements with striker Rodrigo Pinho the first to arrive and are expecting departures from players currently in camp.

Benfica bringing in Portuguese winger

Benfica continue their search for players who will strengthen the club for next season and are closing in on bringing in Portuguese winger Gil Dias from Monaco. Dias has spent the majority of his time at Monaco on loan since joining from Braga at the age of 18 and has seen stops at Nottingham Forest, Olympiacos, Fiorentina, Rio Ave, Granada and most recently Famalicao.

Benfica are said to have offered Monaco €4M to land the 24 year old and bring him back to Portugal on a permanent basis. Dias appeared in 33 games across all competitions for Famalicao last season, scoring twice while setting up three goals in 2,539 minutes of action. Dias is a client of super agent Jorge Mendes' Gestifute agency which has a close connection to the Portuguese club.

Ajax and PSV latest clubs linked with Benfica's Chiquinho

Benfica midfielder Chiquinho has been linked with a variety of clubs across Europe with Dutch sides Ajax and PSV adding their names to a long list. The 25 year old has already been linked with Italian side Torino, Turkish club, Galatasaray and Russian sides, Spartak Moscow, Dynamo Moscow and Krasnodar, with the former headed now by former Benfica manager Rui Vitoria.

Chiquinho joined Benfica in the summer of 2019 from Moreirense for €5.25M and has appeared in 65 games across all competitions, but is not in the plans of manager Jorge Jesus for the upcoming season. Chiquinho who appeared in 27 games for Benfica last season scored four goals while setting up another but only started in seven of those appearances. Chiquinho won a Super Cup as a member of the club in 2019 were he scored his first goal after coming on as a substitute.