Jo\u00e3o Noronha Lopes, a candidate in Benfica\u2019s presidential election, has publicly declared an intention to sign Bernardo Silva either in January or when the player\u2019s contract runs out in 2026. The candidate made the pledge ahead of Benfica\u2019s elections on Oct. 25 and told A Bola, “Yes, I confirm that there\u2019s a contract waiting for Bernardo Silva,” followed by: “And I really want to bring Bernardo in in January. He embodies everything I want for Benfica: identity, a winning culture, and he\u2019s a huge Benfica fan. And I can guarantee you that we\u2019re not stopping here.”<\/p>\n
The midfielder will be 31 in 2026 and, according to the campaign claim, is due to be out of contract in June. The statement adds urgency to a situation in which Bernardo has offered few public hints about a potential extension at his current club.<\/p>\n
Bernardo\u2019s connection to Benfica stretches back to childhood. Despite having a mother and grandfather who supported Sporting CP, he became an avid fan of the club his father lauded. A family gesture saw a young Silva spend two months at Benfica\u2019s academy as a seventh birthday present; after impressing youth coaches “with a velcro touch and wriggling dribbling,” he continued without further payment.<\/p>\n
His early senior opportunities at Benfica were limited to three appearances. Reflecting on that period with the BBC, Bernardo said, “My dream from 7 to 19 was always to play for the first team at Benfica,” and, “When I arrived in the first team, I started noticing they did not count on me and I was moved to left back.” Monaco signed him in 2014, and City paid \u20ac50 million (\u00a343.2 million, $58.5 million) for his transfer three years later.<\/p>\n
Since joining City, Bernardo has made more than 400 appearances, scored 70 goals, supplied 70 assists and won every major trophy available. Those achievements underline why Lopes is presenting a return to Benfica as both plausible and desirable, and why the player\u2019s contract situation carries weight for supporters and rival clubs alike.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Benfica candidate vows contract for Bernardo Silva and suggests a January move amid uncertainty soon<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2670,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[238],"tags":[988,986],"class_list":["post-2671","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-manchester-city","tag-bernardo-silva","tag-contract-standoff"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2671","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2671"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2671\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2670"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2671"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2671"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2671"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}