The Victor Lindelof summer saga has officially kicked off.
It was A Bola who reawakened the story this week, saying Manchester United would be preparing themselves for the ‘final assault’ on the Benfica defender.
They said José Mourinho already tried to sign the defender for €30m in January, and now would strike again, this time hoping to land him for €45m.
But Correio da Manhã shows up today saying that Benfica would not sell for that amount, because the club’s intention is to make their biggest sale ever and only let him go for his €60m release clause.
These are reasonable claims which we even can believe, even though Portuguese clubs usually push for the release clause and end up selling for less.
But what makes the story a little strange is that Correio da Manhã claims that Manchester United tried to sign Lindelof in January for €45m, and Benfica turned it down because of their focus on the title.
Problem is: €45m was reportedly the player’s release clause at the time, and the very same article points out that it was only after the bid that they changed it to €60m.
So they kind of contradict themselves here. The renewal after the bid was also mentioned by Record’s story, and other Portuguese outlets at the time.
We’ve dug a little deeper, and found out that Lindelof’s new contract had actually been made official by Benfica in their semester report from December 2016. So Correio are partially wrong, either by assuming the new contract was signed after the bid or that he had a new release clause before renewing his deal.
It’s certainly confusing, and that confusion makes it hard to believe any of it.
Lindelof isn’t the only Benfica player who has spent months wrapped in Manchester United rumours. In February it was reported that Manchester United had reached a £35m ‘agreement in principle’ to sign fullback Nelson Semedo.
Now, O Jogo reports that Benfica president Luis Filipe Vieira is on his way to Manchester United to negotiate the sale of both Lindelof and Semedo for a total of €95m.
That’s too much, but what is more striking is the Benfica president once again, reportedly, travelling to England. If only a fraction of claims are right, then Luis Filipe Vieira spends so much time outside of Portugal that one could assume he doesn’t like the place.
So we have many reports from Portugal of offers being made, even claims of some kind of agreement for both players, and now Luis Filipe Vieira once again flying over to England.
Once again, it appears to be Benfica pushing the potential sales, both through their local media, and actual efforts at initiating negotiations.
