Gil Vicente Rebuilds Squad Under Luís Pinto
After banking a club-record €40m in sales, Gil Vicente enter the new season with a reshaped squad as Pinto searches for fresh leadership.
Luís Pinto has turned to a heavily reworked squad after Gil Vicente finished 6th in the Primeira Liga last term and banked more than €40 million in transfer income, the highest in the club's history. That windfall, and the departure of several key figures, has left Pinto piecing together a new-look side largely from scratch.
Samuel Portugal, Ricardo Esgaio, Jose Silva, David Moreira, Andreas Lausen, Diogo Prioste and Walace França have all arrived, while Gil Martins, Kaba and Gonçalo Maia have been promoted from the under-23 side. Esgaio, 33, joined in August and has yet to open his account for the club, and Silva, a 21-year-old defender, is among those still finding his footing in the top flight. Prioste, 22, has moved from Benfica B, where he had not scored either.
César Peixoto's exit for Wolverhampton took one of the dressing room's main reference points with him, adding to the scale of the rebuild facing Pinto.
For a squad this freshly assembled, it reads as the state of a club still working out who its team actually is.
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