Now that the transfer window isn’t open for a while, footballers can say they never really had any intention to leave their clubs in the last market.
During the January window, we covered several reports saying Leicester City were interested in the Benfica right-back André Almeida.
The problem was the Foxes were never very keen on spending big, and the €15m demanded by the Eagles seemed too much for them.
That looked like the only reason André Almeida didn’t move, since other players like Islam Slimani and Adrien Silva have been showing that a move to a mid-table English side is worth leaving Portugal for.
But now that Almeida’s transfer collapsed, he’s ‘loyal’ to Benfica, as Record’s headline suggests today.
The club’s official channel had a story on him this weekend, and as the player spoke to his family, he said: “Benfica is everything for me today, dad! Don’t bother about what they say.”
His father claimed that the right-back is “always focused on the club”, and his mother said Benfica “is everything for him”.
That sounds like a nice story and all, but it’s still impressive how a newspaper could take such a video to say the player is rubbishing transfer rumours.
It wouldn’t be a surprise to see Almeida moving if a big offer comes in the summer, from Leicester City or elsewhere, and then we’ll see the same papers feeding the transfer stories.
