With the Portuguese league suspended due to the COVID-19 pandemic midfielder Julian Weigl has decided to use his time off to continue to learn the Portuguese language as he gets adapted to his new homeland. Weigl posted a video online yesterday with his girlfriend as the two translated some extremely long German words into Portuguese. Weigl recently joined Benfica during the winter transfer window for €20M from Borussia Dortmund and has appeared in eleven games across all competitions for Benfica.
Benfica continue to look at bolstering their squad for next season even as the league continues on pause due to the COVID-19 pandemic and the latest player that the club has been linked to is River Plate center back Lucas Quarta. Benfica joins a host of clubs that have been linked to the center back, those clubs include West Ham, Inter Milan and Valencia. The 23 year old Quarta is a home grown River Plate player that has come through the clubs famed academy and plays a position of need for Benfica with the possibility of summer sales of their current starting center backs, Benfica who have also been linked with Freiburg center back Robin Koch will need to bolster the position. Quarta has appeared in 96 games for River Plate across all competitions since debuting with the main squad in 2016 and is signed until the summer of 2021 with a buy out clause of €20M. According to reports out of Portugal, River Plate may be willing to accept an offer of €15M to let Quarta depart the club.
Benfica and FC Porto look set to lock horns once again but this time the clubs will be doing it off the field as both battle to acquire Eduardo Gabriel Aquino Cossa better known as Pepe from Gremio. The 23 year old winger has the interest of both clubs according to reports from Brazil but do to the current COVID-19 pandemic going across the club his agents upcoming trip to Europe to talk with potential suitors has been cancelled. Pepe has a contract with Gremio until the end of 2022 and joined the Brazilian side in April 2016 appearing in 64 games and scoring 12 goals. Gremio currently owns 70% of the players rights and is said to be asking for €20M.
