By Melody Gross 
The departure of Enzo Fernandez with criticism of the player
“Everything was done so that this sale wouldn’t happen. I’m sad that he left but with a clear conscience and that I did my best for Benfica. We tried not to sell him in the middle of the year. But he showed a desire not to stay.
The item value is the amount in the clause but it means the agreement between the club and the player that allows the player to decide whether or not they want to continue. From the beginning, we feared this value, that some club, in this case Chelsea, would bring the value of the clause. Returned two and a half days from the end of the market. From the beginning we were afraid that someone would bring up the value of the sentence. The closer Chelsea gets, the more he shows he doesn’t want to stay. Salary increase discussed and proposal submitted. Half of Chelsea’s proposal was useless to us.
We tried to explain to him that he is an extraordinary player. Will he lose his value in Benfica until the end of the season? Absolutely. A lot of Chelsea will show up. I don’t have the slightest debt. But I also understand that players want to fix the issue right away, afraid of losing out on a proposition they consider huge.
We never managed to get him to convince him. The closer Chelsea got to the value of the item, there was almost no chance of it raising its head. He was very firm in his desire to leave Benfica. It was relentless. I respect his decision, though. We showed him all the possibilities but he never showed an openness to continue. We built the solution to last till the end without losing a single penny. At lunchtime on the 31st I put on the table the suggestion that Chelsea should buy him now and only take him in the summer. However, he was negative about survival. Here things change. I respect the fear of losing a big contract, the other thing is that he doesn’t lose the euro and he doesn’t want to stay. And this is where I move. He showed no commitment to Benfica. Here I thought he couldn’t play for Benfica anymore. As a fan, I didn’t want this player anymore, because management wasn’t a solution either and I couldn’t get into the locker room anymore. He doesn’t hit the box when it counts. This is when I made the decision to sell. We lost a great player but I will not cry over a player who does not want to represent Benfica. Don’t cry for the players who don’t want to be here. I grew up at this club and was told to respect the shirt, otherwise where is the phrase “we only want players who respect the shirt”?