Benfica and Boca Juniors are closing in a completing a move for Salvio, ending the Argentinian wingers time with the Lisbon club. Salvio has been with Benfica on a permanent basis since being acquired in the summer of 2012 from Atletico Madrid after spending a loan spell during the 2010/11 season with the club. Salvio who is looking for playing time has not been given a boost of confidence by current manager Bruno Lage on what his regular playing time would be with the Eagles during the coming season and Boca are very interested in acquiring the winger for their club.
Salvio was set to earn a €2.2M annual salary with Benfica this season and the clubs are still in negotiations on exactly what the Salvio move will be. Benfica are not interested in a loan move for Salvio to Boca, even though Boca is willing to pay Benfica around €2M for the loan. Benfica will only part with Salvio if Boca are willing to purchase at least 50% of the players rights for an estimated €6M. Salvio has appeared in 266 games for Benfica in all competitions scoring 62 goals and assisting on another 54. Salvio would depart having won 14 club trophies with Benfica.
The Benfica season is less then a month away as the club gets set to face arch-rivals Sporting for the Super Cup on August 4. Benfica continue to talk to clubs with the goal of shoring up their roster for another run at the league title and with the hopes of a stronger performance in the Champions League compared to seasons past. The latest out of media outlets have Benfica looking to add a keeper, a secondary striker and potentially another striker to the club before the transfer window closes. What you fail to hear much about in the media is the club looking to strengthen the right back position, a position that I believe to be one of the clubs weaker links. Andre Almeida has been as good a soldier for Benfica as you could expect but has always been an inadequate replacement for the much more talented Nelson Semedo.
Benfica's other options if Almeida were to suffer an injury are "a yet to touch the grass because of injury" Tyronne Ebuehi and an "often injured" Eduardo Salvio playing out of position. The right back spot is also a position that the B side finds themselves lacking with currently Simon Ramirez and U19 prodigy Joao Ferreira filling that position with the club. Benfica's promising youngster at the right back position is Alex Pinto but he will not be available to the club as he has been loaned for the season to league new comers Gil Vicente. The experience that Pinto will receive playing regular minutes in the league will be valuable for his future development but this has no barring on Benfica's current situation for the upcoming season. The time is now for Benfica to focus on a position that needs to be strengthened for the upcoming season, failing to do so could leave the club in a tough predicament and suffering disastrous ramifications.
Benfica have extended the contracts of promising youngsters Tiago Dantas and Nuno Tavares, both players have signed on for five additional seasons and the club has added €88M buy out clauses to each players contract. Dantas is a creative attacking midfielder and is his name has been mentioned as a possible replacement for Joao Felix in this coming season while left back Tavares will be Alex Grimaldo's understudy for the upcoming season with the departure of Yuri Ribeiro to Nottingham last week. Benfica's Seixal academy continues to turn up some gems and these two youngsters should be kept an eye on for this season.
