It was early on a Monday morning in the last week of June when he finally began his new life. Sure, he’d been for a medical, held a press conference and posed with his family at the stadium, but this was different. Dressed in a grey tee-shirt with black trousers, he climbed out of an SUV, grabbed his rucsac and headed inside for the first time, undergoing some routine tests that allowed his new club to proudly show off images of him wearing their training gear.
“Look,” those pictures seemed to scream, “it’s true, Cristiano Ronaldo really is a Juventus player!”
A few weeks may have passed since news of the Portuguese star leaving Real Madrid to join the Italian champions, yet that sentence remains odd to write and even more strange to read. It’s going to take some getting used to for fans in Turin, the supporters he left behind in the Spanish capital, and even those neutral observers who tune in to see CR7 pulling on those famous black and white stripes over the course of the forthcoming season.
Yet even before Ronaldo arrived at Juve’s brand new training centre, the club has been hard at work finding new ways to counterbalance the financial outlay required to get him on board. A €100 million transfer fee, €12 million in additional costs and an annual salary believed to see the Funchal native pocket €30 million after tax all need to be considered, prompting the Bianconeri to turn to an unlikely source of revenue; their youth team.
Their Settore Giovanile has been much-maligned in recent years, Claudio Marchisio the only product of that system to see regular first-team action over the last two decades and the club often resorting to importing players from around Italy in order to boost their ranks. Casting their net wider still, it is not uncommon to see Juve’s under-19s – much like many other top clubs in that age group – fielding large numbers of foreign-born youngsters.
Many then end up on an endless cycle of loan deals, something that the Bianconeri can hope to amend now their B team will be playing in Serie C from this year, but directors Beppe Marotta and Fabio Paratici have also recognised that some of that talent could be sacrificed in order to balance the books.
No sooner was the ink dry on Ronaldo’s four-year contract than they got to work on doing just that. Alberto Cerri was the first to go, the 22-year-old striker – who scored 15 goals for Perugia in Serie B last term – sent to top flight side Cagliari on a 12-month loan deal. The Sardinian club will pay €1 million for the 2018/19 campaign, at the end of which they are obligated to pay a further €9 million to make the switch permanent.
Up next was goalkeeper Emil Audero, off to Sampdoria on loan for €1 million, the Genoa-based side having an option to sign the 21-year-old outright next June for a further €14 million. Central defender Giangiacomo Magnani (22) moved to Sassuolo for €5 million on July 27, with the day before perhaps seeing the most stunning of all these deals finalised.
Udinese, themselves no strangers to stockpiling young talent, bought Rolando Mandragora outright at a cost of €20 million. At 21 years old, the midfielder has played more minutes for the Italian national team (90, in a friendly against France in June) than he has for Juve (4, vs Chievo in April 2017) since joining the Old Lady from Genoa back in January 2016.
With Juve’s talent-laden squad that is unlikely to change at any point in the near future, although the club did ensure a buy-back clause was written into the deal with Udinese just in case. Mandragora would need to improve dramatically for them to consider enforcing that however, meaning that from his sale, plus the total fees from Cerri, Magnani and Audero, they have brought in €50 million without affecting the first-team squad in any way.
There have been others too, Empoli paying their €500,000 option to sign Joel Untersee (24) outright and Perugia doing the same with 25-year-old goalkeeper Nicola Leali at a cost of €2 million. Colombian midfielder Andrés Tello (21) has signed for Benevento in a €3 million deal, while the fact that Ronaldo, Gonzalo Higuain and Paulo Dybala have not joined Juve’s pre-season tour to the USA has also paid off in unexpected fashion.
A 2-0 win over Bayern Munich saw Andrea Favalli bag both goals, and he now looks set to join Genoa, transfer expert Gianluca Di Marzio reporting that the Rossoblu will pay €5 million to loan the striker this season. They will then hand over a further €7 million to sign the 21-year-old outright next summer, while Bologna are obligated to pay €6 million to sign Riccardo Orsolini outright next summer.
That would bring the tally so far – for nine players who currently wouldn’t get close to Max Allegri’s starting XI – to a staggering €73.5 million. If Daniele Rugani was sold to Chelsea as had been discussed for over a month, the income would go above the €112 million fee paid to Real Madrid without sacrificing any players of note at all.
Or, to put it another way, while their youth sector might not technically have given any players to the first-team, profits from the Juventus academy have just delivered Cristiano Ronaldo. That’s good business in anyone’s books.
