Loaned to Elche by OM, where he became undesirable in the eyes of Jorge Sampaoli, during the first half of the 2021-2022 season, Dario Benedetto is definitively transferred to Boca Juniors. Pipa thus returns to the club he left to join Canebière in 2019.
Back to basics. As announced several days ago, Dario Benedetto (31) is leaving Olympique de Marseille for good, six months from the end of his contract, to join Boca Juniors. The Argentinian international striker with 5 caps with the Albiceleste is therefore making his big comeback to the country, within a club he knows well having played there for three years and with which he had forged a solid reputation, before landing in Marseille in 2019.
“Welcome home, Pipa Benedetto! Welcome!”, specifies the CABJ on its social networks. The residents of the Orange Vélodrome will recover a little less than 2 M€ in this transaction.
A flop in Europe
The formalization of this departure is good news for the coffers of OM, which is thus getting rid of a player with a substantial salary on whom Jorge Sampaoli has never counted since his arrival at La Canebière in February 2021. “Pipa “Benedetto, his nickname, had in this sense been loaned by the tricolor team to Elche, in La Liga, in order to find playing time and the path to goal. His short 6-month stint with the Franjiverdes did not go as planned, as he only scored 2 small goals (and delivered 1 assist) in 14 league appearances, even losing his starting spot over the years. weeks.
Overall, the European period of Dario Benedetto will clearly not go down in history. Target number one of the Marseille coach at the time, André Villas-Boas, and announced as a very good pickaxe by many observers at the time, the native of Berazategui, for whom OM had paid no less than 14 M€, will have shaken the nets only 17 times during his freelance in France. Benedetto’s return to Boca de Sebastián Battaglia could do him the greatest good, especially since he enjoys an excellent image there. Unlike the Old Continent and Marseille.
