Benfica are watching Partizan's 18 year old central defender Strahinja Pavlovic according to reports coming out of Portugal. Benfica are always open to adding and developing young talent, so this is not much of a surprise that they would be interested in a player who is considered one of the upcoming young talents in Serbian football. Pavlovic has represented Serbia as a member of the U19, U17 and U16 squads and it is also being reported that Partizan would be opened to departing with the player but have placed a €6M price tag on the player.
Benfica kicked off the upcoming Portuguese season with a 5-0 rout of arch rivals Sporting in the Portuguese Super Cup at the Algarve stadium, winning their second trophy in the last 24 hours after being crowned the International Champions Cup winners yesterday. Benfica's Pizzi and Rafa Silva combined for three goals and three assists in the contest with the former scoring a brace and being named the player of the game. Alex Grimaldo chipped in a free kick goal when he just squeezed the ball between the post and Sporting keeper Renan's out reached hand. Benfica newcomer Chiquinho would end the scoring tapping in a Seferovic pass in extra time.
Sporting's best chances for a goal came from the foot of star midfielder Bruno Fernandes who made sure that Benfica keeper Vladchodimos made a couple of outstanding stops to keep Sporting off the scoreboard. The down side of Benfica's dominating performance is that midfielder Gabriel looked to may have picked up a knock during the game and was substituted, the seriousness of the injury is yet to be determined. Benfica will kick off defense of their league title on Saturday when they host last seasons division two champions Pacos Ferreira.
Benfica have released their squad for their upcoming game today against Sporting in the Super Cup at 20:45pm WEST. The will select 18 players from the list below at game time to dress. The notable omissions from the squad are midfielders Fejsa and Zivkovic.
Keepers- Odysseas Vlachodimos, Ivan Zlobin
Defenders- Tyronne Ebeuhi, Ruben Dias, Ferro, Alex Grimaldo, Jardel, Nuno Tavares
Midfielders- Pizzi, Gabriel, Florentino, Rafa Silva, Franco Cervi, Chiquinho, Taarabt, Samaris
Forwards- Seferovic, Raul de Tomas, Carlos Vinicius, Jota
