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Fabio Cardoso is one of a handful of Benfica associated players who have been linked with Rangers over the past few days.

On May 28th we brought claims from Portugal that Rangers manager Pedro Caixinha had targeted three Portugal based players for Ibrox transfers. This story was broken in Portugal, and has been pushed forward in Portugal.

The players attracting Ibrox interest are Fábio Cardoso, a 23 year old central defender, Daniel Candeias, a 29 year old winger, and Dalcio, a 21 year old Benfica B forward.

Latest updates from Portugal can be found here. 

It was explained that Benfica and Vitoria Setubal each own 50% of the Cardoso’s rights, a situation not unusual in Portugal.

On Wednesday, claims emerged from Scotland that Wolves could ‘scupper’ everything for Rangers and Caixinha, because they’ve appointed Nuno Espirito Santo. The former Porto manager was Jorge Mendes’ first client and, it’s claimed that with him having a hand in Wolves’ transfer business, he can move Cardoso there.

Mendes has his finger in almost every Portuguese transfer pie, so there’s always the possibility of him meddling in Rangers business, but this isn’t causing an issue in the Portuguese press, who launched the story in the first place.

Indeed, rather than Mendes trying to hijack a Rangers move, his more natural reaction would be to see if he can get a slice of their Portuguese recruitment too.

If both Wolves and Rangers continue to look to Portugal to recruit, then they will cross paths, but being Mendes affiliated doesn’t automatically give Wolves an advantage. Indeed, as many Valencia fans would explain, it can do the opposite, with the club ended up being the one dishing out favours.

Mendes is likely to play a continuing role in Wolves’ recruitment so it may be worth fans of the club having a look at Valencia’s recent history.