Former captain of Kyiv’s Dynamo and the Ukrainian national team Oleg Luzhny recalled how, before moving to London’s Arsenal, he almost became a player of Lisbon’s Benfica.
Oleg Luzhny“At one time, I went to Lisbon’s Benfica. I even signed a personal contract with the club, and it was supposed to be registered in a few days.
I was presented to the fans, and they gave me a jersey with the number three.
The head coach of Benfica, Graham Souness, really wanted to have me in his team. He even had a disagreement with the president of their club because of me.
I liked everything there very much. Especially the way I was welcomed. They showed me where I would live. Accommodation by the ocean. In the team, there was a Ukrainian, Sergey Kandaurov, and a Russian, Sergey Ovchinnikov. I was pleasantly surprised by the conditions created at Benfica — the training base, the stadium, the nature, the fans.
Graham Souness treated me so well that he personally came to the hotel for me every day, took me to the training base, and then we had dinner together. He wanted to show how important I was to him,” Luzhny writes in his autobiographical book “Without Compromises. The Honest Story of Our Football,” which is already available for pre-order on the publisher’s website — stretovych.com.ua.
But in this situation, there were disagreements between Benfica and Dynamo.
“The clubs could not come to an agreement. Even the fact that I signed a contract with Benfica didn’t mean anything yet. I still needed to sign a contract with the Federation of Portugal. And then my agreement with Benfica would have been valid.
I was disappointed when I left the Portuguese club. I don’t know who made up the story that I didn’t like something in Portugal and criticized Benfica. It’s all nonsense. I wanted to stay there; I had an incredible desire to test my own skills in Europe,” Luzhny adds.
