Manchester City have added to their deadline day captures by signing Spanish international Javi Garcia from Benfica.
The 25-year-old flew in from Lisbon to undergo a medical on deadline day ahead of an €18m move to the Premier League champions, with City boss Roberto Mancini bringing his spending in the summer transfer market to around €55m.
Negotiations between the Blues and Benfica are understood to have been ongoing for nearly a week and were brought to a successful conclusion on Friday evening.
Defensive midfielder Garcia is a product of Real Madrid’s youth system and made his B team debut aged 17 in a 5-0 home defeat of Levante in November 2004,
However, after just three first-team appearances for Los Blancos he was offloaded to Osasuna three years later for a reported fee of €2.5m.
His form in Pamplona was such that Real exercised their €4m right to buy the player back one year later, but after just one season he was deemed surplus to requirements at the Santiago Bernabeu and sold to Benfica for a fee of €7m.
Murcia-born Garcia gained his one and only cap for Spain in a May 2012 friendly with Serbia in St. Gallen, Switzerland, coming on as a substitute for the final 22 minutes.
