Pizzi set to depart Benfica for Turkey

Long time Benfica midfielder Pizzi is set to depart the club on loan for the remainder of the season and join Turkish side Istanbul Basaksehir. The 32 year old was left off today's squad list for the clubs league game and is expected in Istanbul over the next few hours to complete the move to the 2019/20 Turkish Champions who currently sit in fifth spot in the league.

Pizzi has fallen out of favour this season starting two league games out of twenty the club has played thus far, having not been a first choice of former manager Jorge Jesus or current intern manager Nelson Verissimo. Pizzi has made 30 appearances for Benfica this season across all competitions, scoring twice while setting up four goals. He has played a total of 943 minutes which averages out to about 35 minutes per game.

Pizzi first joined Benfica in the summer of 2013 from Atletico Madrid for €14M and spent his first season on loan at Espanyol before sticking with the Lisbon club since that time. Pizzi has appeared in 360 games with Benfica across all competitions, scoring 94 goals while setting up an additional 96. Pizzi was named the league's most valuable player during the 2016/17 season and has captured ten trophies, including four league titles in his time with Benfica.  

 

Benfica searching for Portuguese manager

Benfica President Rui Costa has announced that he is currently searching for a manager to take over the club for next season and his preference is a manager who is Portuguese and understands the game in Portugal. Costa speaking to reporters is expecting the manager to be able to work with the clubs youth as he looks to use more Seixal academy youngsters and is looking at reducing the squad numbers to a more work able number.

Costa has taken a lot of heat of late as Benfica continue to spiral this season with no end in sight and with the club set to take on Ajax in the Champions League round of 16 over the next few weeks. The expectations are as low as they have been in recent memory for the club to advance to the quarter-final stage. Benfica recently lost in the Taca da Liga Final to city rivals Sporting and their form leaves alot to be desired.

Costa is also looking at changing the clubs focus on transfers as he plans to look within the league for reinforcements before looking abroad as has been the case over the past few seasons. Costa looks set to remove all memory of Jorge Jesus' second stint with the club which saw the club spend a record haul on players which produced no return on their investment with the club failing to capture any hardware.

Benfica's issues start at home

Benfica's chances of capturing the league title this season has become a far fetched dream, after the club lost their fourth game of the season to Gil Vicente in Week 20 action and an unheard of third league game loss at the Estadio da Luz in only ten games played there to date. This is the same organization that went a remarkable nine seasons between 2010/11 to 2018/19 losing a grand total of just eight league home games, the run included an unbeaten streak of three seasons without a defeat between 2012/13 to 2014/15. 

We fast forward to today and this has become a club who has lost the same eight games at home in just two and half seasons and have turned what was once a fortress were club's came to town nervous, hoping not to be embarrassed and expecting to lose into an all inclusive resort were visiting clubs now come ready to take advantage of the all you can eat buffets and the late night menus. Benfica is broken and a complete revamp is required, the first step is finding a manager with a vision, players with the passion and pride of wearing the jersey and more importantly turning what was once their unstoppable ground back into the fortress we became so accustomed to over the past decade. The balls in your court now Rui Costa.