The current COVID-19 pandemic has seen the stoppage of league play since March 12 and some of the only good news coming out of this current world crisis is that Benfica has seen its list of injured players return back to health. Andre Almeida, Gabriel and Jardel are all awaiting the green light to return to training without limitations in preparation for the league resuming regular play down the road. Benfica would welcome the return to full strength of the squad with two of its regular starting eleven in Almeida and Gabriel back as options for Bruno Lage and Jardel would return as the third choice option at the center back position which the club currently lacks. The Portuguese league is currently considering resuming play at the end of May with the whole competition finishing the remaining games under quarantine in the Algarve in empty stadiums but what would be a boom for television viewership.
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.
