Benfica and the Great Champions League Question: What If?

“The Premier League generates so much money,” he mentioned. “The salaries are several times higher. It makes it very difficult to retain a player.” Benfica, he mentioned, has no real interest in retaining maintain of those that now not want to signify the membership.

The scale of the deal supplied one thing of a solace, in fact. Though Benfica needed to pay a substantial payment to River Plate, due to a sell-on clause inserted into Fernández’s unique contract, it nonetheless made one thing within the area of $70 million in revenue within the Chelsea deal. It is one more feather within the membership’s cap. But that’s not, actually, the metric by which Benfica needs to be judged.

“It is not about trading players or profit,” Soares de Oliveira mentioned. “We would prefer to have the player six months later than have to sell him. But we cannot say no.”

All it might do, as a substitute, is chart a gentle course via the churn. Schmidt has tried to be as phlegmatic as he can about the entire thing. He inspired some gamers to make use of Fernández’s departure as a launchpad: The deal got here too late in January for Benfica to supply a substitute, so somebody needed to step up and take his place.

So far, that honor has fallen to Chiquinho, a 27-year-old who has spent the final 12 months or so out on mortgage. He was a part of the workforce that helped Benfica navigate easily previous Club Bruges within the spherical of 16 of the Champions League. He will, most probably, be current because it makes an attempt to choose its well beyond Inter, and into the semifinals, to the foothills of the inconceivable.

That is the way it needs to be, at Benfica. The ball retains rolling. The membership is used to gamers leaving. It tries to not let departures sidetrack them from all that it needs to realize. But sometimes, Benfica wonders, too, if it is perhaps a little bit higher if it didn’t should be this fashion.

Tariq Panja contributed reporting from London.