Verissimo looking at Ramos to be Felix?

New intern manager Nelson Verissimo looks to have taken a page out of former Benfica skipper Bruno Lage's playbook when he inserted 20 year old Goncalo Ramos into the starting eleven this weekend in a formation that resembles Benfica's last winning championship under Lage going back to the 2018-19 season.

Lage made his debut with Benfica in January 6, 2019 replacing Rui Vitoria and on his drive home while preparing for his first game, the former manager decided to bet on a 19 year old kid named Joao Felix to shake things up at the club. We all know how that turned out as Felix exploded onto the scene, finishing the season with twenty goals across all competitions while setting up an additional fourteen as Benfica regained their league crown.

Felix would then depart during the summer months joining Spanish club Atletico Madrid in a record setting sale that would see Benfica add €127M to its coffer. Verissimo sees the highly regarded Ramos as playing the same type of role in the secondary striker position as Felix did during that magical season returning the club to the 4-4-2 formation over Jesus' preferred 3-5-2 system.

Ramos has already seen an uptick in playing time over Verissimo's first two games appearing in 125 minutes compared to 881 under Jesus's tenure this season which covered 30 games across all competitions. Ramos has chipped in a modest goal and assist to date but with regular playing minutes and a gain of confidence could Ramos bring to Benfica what Felix did, only time will tell and we have half a season to find out.

Benfica dealing with another COVID-19 outbreak

As the COVID-19 pandemic's case count continues to soar around the world with a new and more contagious variant, Benfica has not been spared in their dealings with the virus as the club has been hit once again with an outbreak. The outbreak at this time is not at the extent of last season's outbreak and with vaccines in the picture we hope that the case count continues to remain at the current level. 

Benfica will be without players Vlachodimos, Pizzi, Meite, Radonjic, Yaremchuk and Svilar, who have all tested postive over the last 72 hours while left back Alex Grimaldo has returned to training since his positive result over a week ago. Benfica have called up B squad keeper Leo Kokubo to back up Helton Leite with the club down to one keeper as they prepare for Sunday's league encounter against Pacos Ferreira.

Update: Jan Vertonghen has also tested positive for COVID-19

Atletico Madrid interested in Benfica keeper

Spanish club Atletico Madrid is once again linked with a player from Benfica as the Lisbon club looks set to negotiate another move with the Madrid giants. Atletico are looking for a keeper to push current number one and former Benfica shot stopper Jan Oblak and feel that the clubs Greek starter is the perfect player for the job.

Atletico are said to be willing to offer Benfica their choice of current club players Hector Herrera and Geoffrey Kondogbia as part of the negotiation which could be valued at €20M according to Fichajes.net. Atletico and Benfica's last player negotiation was the €127.8M deal that saw Joao Felix move from Benfica to Atletico in the summer of 2019.