Benfica President Luis Filipe Vieira is in Italy looking to close a deal for 21 year old Serie B striker Gianluca Scamacca according to reports from Italy. Benfica who are in the process of closing a sale with Espanyol for the services of Raul de Tomas have their eyes set on his replacement and feel that the Sassuolo striker who is currently on loan at Ascoli would be the right fit for the club. Benfica are said to have offered Sassuolo €10M plus bonuses to acquire Scamacca and Vieira is preparing to meet with Scamacca personally as he looks to convince him to join the Lisbon club this January. Scamacca has appeared in 17 games for Ascoli this season scoring ten goals and has been a member of Italy's youth national sides at every level from U15 to the U21. Benfica are reluctant to go much higher then their current offer for a player that has appeared in only three Serie A games to date.
Reports coming out of both Portugal and Spain have Benfica reaching an agreement with Espanyol for the services of recently acquired Spanish striker Raul de Tomas. Espanyol are said to have made an offer to Benfica yesterday to land De Tomas for €20M plus bonuses which would actually earn Benfica a profit on the €20M the club paid Real Madrid this summer to acquire the 25 year old. De Tomas has not been able to find a groove since joining the Lisbon club and with Benfica looking to shore up their midfield the €20M will assist in their chase to land Atletico Paranaense midfielder Bruno Guimaraes. Benfica could earn up to an additional €2.5M in bonuses this season if De Tomas or the club hit certain targets that have been agreed to. Benfica will get €1M if De Tomas appears in ten league games, they will also earn an additional €1M bonus if Espanyol avoid relegation this season. Benfica are also set to earn €500K if De Tomas scores ten goals for Espanyol and will retain 20% of the players rights towards any future sale. De Tomas' Benfica career has been less then memorable and the Spaniard has been pushing to leave the club and return to his native Spain since losing regular minutes to Carlos Vinicius and Chiquinho. De Tomas has appeared in 17 games across all competitions this season, finding the net on three occasions while adding one helper.
According to reports coming from Portugal Dutch side Ajax are interested in landing Benfica starting keeper Vlachodimos next summer to replace their current starting keeper Andre Onana who looks set to depart with links to some of Europe's bigger clubs.
Vlachodimos who joined Benfica in the summer of 2018 for €2.5M from Greek club Panathinaikos is the replacement that Ajax favour but Benfica would not let their current number one depart for anything less then €15M. Vlachodimos has appeared in 72 games across all competitions since joining Benfica and has kept a clean sheet in 44% of the games for 32 in total. Benfica have spent the past 6 months looking for a keeper to battle Vlachodimos for the starting job but have yet to land that said keeper and the Greek International is currently being backed up by 22 year old Ivan Zlobin.
