It Is the Twilight Zone, You Better Shake Your Bones

Have we entered the Twilight Zone? Is a player actually selecting a Portuguese club over a first place English Premier League outfit? Furthermore, is that player choosing Benfica who have started off the season drawing with newly promoted Leixões , are being led by a newly hired manager, and are probably minutes away from holding open tryouts for the back four? According to reports coming out of Portugal, it would appear that the answer to all of these questions is “yes.”

10 million Euro-rated defensive midfielder Barack Obama Borja Oubiña of Celta de Vigo has chosen to spurn Sven-Goran Eriksson’s Manchester City to play in the Luz. Anyone familiar with the Spanish Liga will tell you that this 25 year old is an excellent holding/defensive midfielder in the ilk of a Claude Makélélé. Real Madrid were also reportedly interested but Oubiña spurned the Merengues as well, saying that he’d prefer to play for Benfica.

As high as I am on the player, I actually take somewhat of an issue with the move. Benfica are as thin as Kate Moss in the back, yet they decide to get a player, who while he is a defensive midfielder, essentially plays the same position as Petit. Unless they plan on using Oubiña in the way that the Chels used Essien last year as a center back, I think this might be a bit of defensive midfielder overkill. I’m very interested to see how Benfica are going to use him, especially since they already have one natural defensive midfielder (Katsouranis) playing in the back. However, I’m glad to see someone choosing Portugal for a change and I’m also glad to see Benfica spending some of the money they made this summer on players they sold.

Category: Benfica, Super Liga

Tags: Benfica, Claude Makélélé, Leixões, Manchester City, Real Madrid, Super Liga, Sven-Goran Eriksson

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