Benfica searching for Portuguese manager

Benfica President Rui Costa has announced that he is currently searching for a manager to take over the club for next season and his preference is a manager who is Portuguese and understands the game in Portugal. Costa speaking to reporters is expecting the manager to be able to work with the clubs youth as he looks to use more Seixal academy youngsters and is looking at reducing the squad numbers to a more work able number.

Costa has taken a lot of heat of late as Benfica continue to spiral this season with no end in sight and with the club set to take on Ajax in the Champions League round of 16 over the next few weeks. The expectations are as low as they have been in recent memory for the club to advance to the quarter-final stage. Benfica recently lost in the Taca da Liga Final to city rivals Sporting and their form leaves alot to be desired.

Costa is also looking at changing the clubs focus on transfers as he plans to look within the league for reinforcements before looking abroad as has been the case over the past few seasons. Costa looks set to remove all memory of Jorge Jesus' second stint with the club which saw the club spend a record haul on players which produced no return on their investment with the club failing to capture any hardware.

Benfica's issues start at home

Benfica's chances of capturing the league title this season has become a far fetched dream, after the club lost their fourth game of the season to Gil Vicente in Week 20 action and an unheard of third league game loss at the Estadio da Luz in only ten games played there to date. This is the same organization that went a remarkable nine seasons between 2010/11 to 2018/19 losing a grand total of just eight league home games, the run included an unbeaten streak of three seasons without a defeat between 2012/13 to 2014/15. 

We fast forward to today and this has become a club who has lost the same eight games at home in just two and half seasons and have turned what was once a fortress were club's came to town nervous, hoping not to be embarrassed and expecting to lose into an all inclusive resort were visiting clubs now come ready to take advantage of the all you can eat buffets and the late night menus. Benfica is broken and a complete revamp is required, the first step is finding a manager with a vision, players with the passion and pride of wearing the jersey and more importantly turning what was once their unstoppable ground back into the fortress we became so accustomed to over the past decade. The balls in your court now Rui Costa.

Benfica make the right move, keeping Darwin

Benfica for one of the rare times this season made a right move when they turned away all offers for 22 year old striker Darwin Nunez during the winter transfer window, even when clubs like West Ham hounded them until the final hours. Benfica is reported to have had a deal on the table similar to the one Liverpool made to acquire Luis Diaz from FC Porto which was €45M plus €15M in add ons but unlike Porto, Benfica are not in the financial trouble that their northern rivals currently face and said no.

Nunez's days at Benfica will more then likely not extend past this season but with the world of football slowly getting back to normal and money trickling back into clubs coffers, Benfica's no right now could see an additional €20M-€30M added to clubs current offers when the summer rolls around. Nunez is currently the leading scorer in Portugal with 15 goals and has chipped in 20 across all competitions this season in just 25 games.

Premiership clubs West Ham and Newcastle have been heavily linked with Nunez along with Spanish clubs Barcelona and Atletico Madrid. The assumption is that more big name clubs will enter the sweepstakes during the summer months, driving up the price of the Uruguayan international who is constantly compared to compatriot Edinson Cavani.