David Neres completed his move to Benfica on Monday. The former Ajax player will team up with former PSV coach Roger Schmidt for the Portuguese record champion.
25-year-old Neres comes over from Shakhtar Donetsk and signs a five-year contract with Benfica, where Schmidt has been active as a trainer since this summer. It is the first major summer reinforcement of the Portuguese top club since the appointment of the German coach.
It had been a long time coming for Neres to move to Benfica. Shortly after his transfer from Ajax to Shakhtar Donetsk, the Russian invasion of Ukraine began. The attacker had not yet played a game for his new club at that time and fled the war zone.
A transfer to Benfica now offers a solution for Neres, who earned Ajax about 12 million euros at the beginning of the year. The Brazilian played with the team from Amsterdam from 2017 to 2022. In the last year and a half of Neres in the Eredivisie, Schmidt was the trainer of PSV.
Benfica does not make any statements about the transfer fee. According to Portuguese media, Benfica is using a debt that Shakhtar still had outstanding with the Portuguese after the transfer of Pedrinho, who transferred to the champions of Ukraine for 18 million euros last year.
Schmidt welcomed Alexander Bah (Slavia Prague), Petar Musa (Boavista) and Mihailo Ristic (Montpellier) to Lisbon earlier this summer. Opposite this was the departure of star player Darwin Núñez, who went to Liverpool for 75 million euros.