Benfica are growing increasingly anxious over Argentine winger Gianluca Prestianni. As the new season gets under way, the queue of clubs tracking his progress keeps getting longer.
According to TalkSport, Chelsea are keeping tabs on the 20-year-old, who has become one of the game’s brightest young prospects after a rapid rise at Benfica since his 2024 move from Argentina’s Vélez Sarsfield.
Sources close to the club confirm that Chelsea, Tottenham, Manchester United, Newcastle and Brighton have all watched the player closely in recent months, with their scouts weighing up how ready he is to take the next step.
No official offers have landed yet. Even so, interest in the winger keeps building as he continues to impress in Portugal.
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Recruitment departments across the Premier League knew Prestianni well before he joined Benfica. The move to Portugal looked like the perfect pathway, a chance to cut his teeth in European football before stepping up to something bigger.
Last season the international nailed down his place, featuring in more than 30 matches across all competitions. The young winger has gone on to score 6 goals and provide 3 assists so far, showing off the creativity, pace and technical quality that caught the eye of England’s scouts in the first place.
Benfica know all about the growing Premier League interest, and they want to shore up their position by tying him down to a new long-term deal.
While the Portuguese club are determined to protect the value of the player, who has two international caps to his name, the clubs chasing him are gathering information rather than actively opening talks.
As Prestianni keeps developing and building his reputation, it would come as no surprise if that interest turns into something far more concrete over the coming windows.
The winger found himself in the spotlight last season during Real Madrid’s clash with Benfica in Lisbon on 17 February, the first leg of the Champions League round-of-16 play-off qualifier. He directed racist insults at Real Madrid star Vinícius Júnior, who said the Argentine had called him a “monkey”.
UEFA handed him a six-match suspension, three of them suspended, and FIFA agreed to UEFA’s request to apply it at international level. Lionel Scaloni then left him out of Argentina’s squad for the 2026 World Cup, before deciding to call him up for the current camp.
