Where next for Dyego Sousa?

Dyego Sousa’s time at SL Benfica looks to be coming to an end prematurely after his loan spell from Chinese outfit Shenzhen.

You only need to go back to 2019 to see how highly rated Dyego Sousa once was. In January, the now 30-year old was a man in demand, Benfica among the clubs interested in his services, while other sides were also looking at the dominant striker, with offers of up to 15 million euros coming in for him. But Braga were unwilling to sell their star striker before the end of the campaign.

And you can understand it. He had a tremendous final campaign at Braga, scoring 14 goals in the club’s first 21 Primeira Liga matches, though did have a far less productive end, just one goal in his final 13 league outings. Nevertheless, he was highly rated at Braga, and proved as much in the first half of that 2018-19 campaign.

His displays for Braga were so encouraging that he even earned a call-up to the Portugal national team despite being Brazilian born, and featured in both of Portugal’s first two Euro 2020 qualifiers versus Ukraine and Serbia. He earned another call-up to the national team for the Nations League finals, though failed to play either the semi-final or final.

It therefore came as something of a surprise that he was sold for under 6 million euros in July 2019 to Shenzhen, with some many clubs understood to be interested.

Indeed, by January 2020, he completed a move back to Europe, returning to Portugal by joining Benfica, having understood to have turned down proposals from Lazio, Sporting and Wolves, the latter desperately searching for a backup striker in the January market, favouring a move to the Eagles instead.

He has, however, failed to score a single goal for Benfica since joining the club on a loan deal that is due to end in December 2020, having featured in 13 matches across all competitions. Those stats are fairly misleading though as the vast majority of his appearances came as a late substitue, meaning he was afforded under 300 minutes of football all season.

Nevertheless, Dyego Sousa is not in Jorge Jesus’ plans and is expected to leave the club this summer, be it to return to Shenzhen or, more likely, find another club, either to take over his existing loan deal or move permanently.

Vitoria Guimaraes were one club that were touted as a potential destination for the physical forward, while Besiktas have also been linked with Sousa this window, though neither look particularly likely. Could we see a more prestigious club come in for him as an option on the bench? That is certainly something Wolverhampton Wanderers have previously tried, though you would expect that they will be moving on to other players who have shown better form over the last season. Ultimately, it is difficult to call where Dyego Sousa could end up.