Benfica News 7/18/08

On the first day of work for Pablo Aimar, there were also a few other returns. Luisao, Katsouranis and Maxi all made their 08/09 pre-season training debut, one day before Benfica's first game of the pre-season against Estoril.

According to news reports, Katsouranis arrived with an offer from an European club, but Benfica will be very reluctant in letting Katsouranis go for anything less than the price they are asking, somewhere around 10m.
Rui Costa as mentioned that Benfica only wants players that want to be at Benfica, and Quique Flores reinforced the same statement this morning when he was asked about Katsouranis, stating that Benfica will not try to convince any player to stay at Benfica. Players should feel drawn to the club’s projects and ambitions, and should have the desire to defend the sacred mantle.


The remaining missing players, with the exception of Freddy Adu will report to work on July 21st.
A time where Quique will get the finally observe them. More “cuts” are expected to come by the end of next week.

Freddy Adu was officially named to the US Olympic squad, and won’t be available for a return until mid August. As I had written on the post before this one, the USMOT will be entering camp this coming week in California, then flying out to Hong Kong on Friday(7/25) where they will play 2 tuners(Cameroon and Ivory Coast Olympic squads) before they open the tournament against Japan August 7th.

In a 30 minute interview conceded to RTP, Luis Felipe Vieira stated that there are still 1-2 more important players to close, before the squad is closed, but was not specific in positions.
In this interview, which the main topic was the “golden whistle “case, Luis Felipe Vieira also admitted that there were 3 candidates for the coaching job, Quique, Queiroz and Eriksson.



From the practice field……

All four new faces warmed up with the squad, but did their own pre-season workout, which involved endurance and flexibility training.

Nelson, Quim, Fellipe Bastos and David Luiz also did specific work, part of their recuperation process from their respective injuries.

Despite their loan announcement, Carvalhas, Romeu Ribeiro, Ruben Lima and Miguel Rosas, continue to work under Quique. There’s also talk of Carvalhas possibly staying, as the winger position is a bit light, with both DiMaria and Adu away on Olympic duty, and Coentrao now out of the picture.

Don’t look now but 16 year old forward Nelson Oliveira, is still with the squad, and has been impressing Quique.


In today’s short scrimmage Quique used the following 11s :

Bruno Costa; Luís Filipe, Miguel Vítor, Edcarlos and Léo; Nuno Assis, Binya, Carlos Martins and André Carvalhas; Makukula e Nélson Oliveira.

Moreira; Romeu Ribeiro, Abel Pereira, João Pereira e Sepsi; Balboa, Ruben Amorim, Yebda and Ruben Lima; Yu Dabao and Urreta.

Looking at these 11s, and assuming that Quique will not risk using Nelson, Quim, Fellipe Bastos and David Luiz, we can see a starting XI very close to the first one mentioned above, with the exception of Moreira being in goal instead of Bruno Costa and a few other tweaks. Expect a whole new 11 for the second half, or variations of the first 11, for Quique to observe certain players together.
Don’t expect to see any of the players that started training today in tomorrow’s match.

As far as I know the game will be televised by RTP, and you can probably catch it on your usual P2P portals, if you do not have access to RTPi.