Rui Costa on Bernardo Silva’s possible Benfica return: just talk | OneFootball

Rui Costa did not rule out the return of Bernardo Silva to Benfica, although he refused to use such a possibility as an electoral trump card for the Club's presidency.

The elections for the presidency of Benfica remain heated and, after making a veiled comment about another candidate in the elections, Rui Costa addressed a topic that has been widely used by João Noronha Lopes in the current campaign: the return of Bernardo Silva to Benfica.

"I do not agree with this demagoguery and I have seen a lot of demagoguery, a lot of embellishment about things that aren’t even tangible," Rui Costa, current President of Benfica, began by saying in an interview with Record newspaper, sending a message to his opponents.

Next, Rui Costa admitted that he believes Bernardo Silva will return to Benfica, even though he has not had confirmation from the player himself: "Bernardo Silva, I truly believe he is a player who will one day wear the Benfica shirt again, because of his love for Benfica and everything he represents for the Club. There’s no need to talk to him to know that."

In this regard, the President of Clube da Luz recalled that, during his term, he has already brought some players back to Luz: "We are talking about a player who is captain of Manchester City. His contract ends next year and what I promise Benfica fans regarding this is to try to do what I have done in this term. I brought Renato [Sanches] and I brought Gonçalo [Guedes], unfortunately things didn’t work out as well as they could have."

Recalling two other former academy players he tried to bring back to Luz, Rui Costa did not deny that he will try to sign Bernardo Silva, but ruled out using it as an electoral trump card: "In the same way, I tried to bring Nélson Semedo and João Félix this year and it’s clear that if I have the opportunity to bring Bernardo Silva to Benfica, I won’t turn it down, obviously. On the contrary, I will go after him. It’s also up to the players to decide whether they want to return to Benfica and see if the conditions are right. But to come here and promise ‘I’ll bring this one or that one’, that’s the 80s or 90s, and I don’t go along with that kind of demagoguery."

This article was translated into English by Artificial Intelligence. You can read the original version in 🇵🇹 here.