Rafael Soares slams Benfica deal: It wasn't good | OneFootball

Richard Ríos has officially left Benfica and will play for Al Ittihad on loan. After all the exchange of documents in the early hours of Wednesday morning, the deal was announced late at night, but the operation is far from unanimous. For Rafael Soares, it is impossible to view the way the Eagles handled the process in a positive light.

"I don’t think anyone can look at the Richard Ríos deal and say it was a good one. Ríos cost Benfica 27 million euros, one of the most expensive signings in Portuguese football history, and he is being shipped out. Benfica did not want Ríos in the squad. That is why they are loaning him to Al Ittihad, and now there is a leap of faith, because that is the only way to describe what Ríos’s future will be if Benfica ends up making more money from him, since it depends on what he does outside Benfica," he began by saying on the Now channel.

Rafael Soares also recalled the expectations created by Rui Costa himself when the Colombian international was signed. Benfica’s president had presented Ríosas one of the leading faces of a transfer window he considered particularly strong. The commentator also pointed to other players who arrived at Benfica during that period and have since lost their place among the team’s main options.

"This is absolutely incomprehensible when we go back a year and Ríos was the biggest face of one of the best transfer windows Benfica can remember. It’s not me saying this, I’m quoting Rui Costa at the close of the window. And like Ríos, Ivanovic is also on his way out, while Lukebakio and Enzo are substitutes today. So, when we get to this point and Benfica make 3 million from Ríos’s loan for a player who was supposed to be the last Coca-Cola in the desert. Remember that Rui Costa said he would never be a flop," he recalled.

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