Since Nemanja Matic’s contract with Manchester United expires this summer, his former club Benfica are one of the sides who are interested in signing him as a free agent.
Newspaper Correio da Manhã today features a story on this subject, pointing out that the Eagles are now completely convinced of trying to bring him back to Lisbon.
That won’t be an easy task, since the likes of Fulham, Juventus, Napoli and Roma are the other clubs who ‘follow’ the 33-year-old.
At this point, Benfica still hadn’t advanced for the move because their new manager Roger Schmidt wasn’t convinced about it.
Now following a meeting with official Lourenço Coelho, the manager ended up giving the ‘green light’ for the signing, knowing his comeback would mean a lot for the club.
Correio da Manhã doesn’t mention any financial difficulties Benfica would have to make the signing, or even if the competition with Fulham and others would make the race very difficult.
Still, we get to see a story from newspaper Record which is actually very pessimistic about the Eagles’ chances of landing Matic.
They claim that even though the player is an option which ‘pleases’ Benfica officials, the demands of salary and signing prizes make his arrival pretty much ‘impossible’.
Perhaps this is where Fulham might have an advantage following their promotion back up to the Premier League, but we’ll have to wait and see what unfolds in the next few weeks.
