Spanish giants Real Madrid are close to clinching the signing of Argentina's Angel Di Maria, according to media reports on Thursday.
The Benfica winger was featured on the front page of sports dailies AS and Marca on Thursday, DPA reported.
AS said that Di Maria will be "the first signing" of Real president Florentino Perez this summer, and that "his arrival is imminent."
The paper suggested that Real will not pay more than 25 million euros (30 million dollars) for the 22 year-old winger. Perez wants to close the deal "as soon as possible" in order to avoid his price going up due to a "stellar performance" at the World Cup for Argentina.
Marca said that Di Maria "could become a Real Madrid player either today or tomorrow", and that Real will try to keep the price down by loaning out some youngsters to the Portuguese champions.
In recent years several players have left Real for Benfica, most notably Javier Saviola and Javi Garcia.