Timothy Weah has been on the reported radar of several European clubs heading into the offseason, but Juventus is drawing closer to acquiring him permanently.
Weah has agreed personal terms with Juventus, La Gazzetta Dello Sport reported Thursday. Juventus will now need to agree a transfer fee with Lille in order to fully acquire Weah this summer.
The 23-year-old Weah mainly featured as a fullback and wing back for Lille this season, registering two assists in 32 combined appearances. He was previously linked with Marseille, Fulham, Sevilla, and others throughout the season.
He recently started in both of the U.S. men’s national team’s Nations League matches last week as the Americans repeated as tournament winners. Weah has earned 29 caps with the USMNT to date, scoring four goals.
Should Weah join Juventus, he would team up with fellow USMNT international Weston McKennie, who has returned from his loan spell from Leeds United.
Juventus missed out on the Serie A top-four this season and was deducted 10 points for reported false accounting.
I just saw that Antonee Robinson could go to man city for 35 million
Interest from Aston Villa for Adams.
Romano says Pepi to PSV will be done in the next 24 hrs. Summer transfer window it’s the most fun time of the year.
Weah on the move, Pepi on the move, AC Milan favored in acquiring Pulisic, Tillman being linked with Premier league move. Just waiting on solid info about Musah, McKennie, Adams, Dest, Aaronson, Wright, and Balogun. Also interested to see if Reynolds goes out on loan again. Also sounds like Miles Robinson is looking for a move to Europe.
you want reynolds gone on a transfer. you don’t want him on endless loans. does the “roma” part really matter if he almost never plays there? (was miazga “chelsea” in any meaningful sense?). he finally finds his feet and back into a NT that cares too much about club form, and we’re like, how about another loan? he needs out.
mckennie and weah might briefly be in juve camp together before they ship mckennie out to where-ever he goes next. my personal reaction is why doesn’t weah want to sign someplace he will start? ditto a lot of the rest of the list.
The main Italian daily (La Gazzetta Dello Sport) now confirms that it’s happening – Juve and Lille agreed on terms, around 12M Euros. Love my Juve with some ‘Merica!
And so the circus begins. This is the first time I can recall so many Nats either put up for sale or opting out of contracts for the summer transfer season. Weah is really the first of many we’ll see over the next several weeks.
Juventus needs to cut costs, and Weah is an affordable player who can fill in at two positions. It is too early to tell if this works out in his favor, but there’s not really a downside. We need to remind ourselves that Lille, like Dortmond, Bayern Munich, Valencia, MLS clubs, etc. are all looking for a return on their investment. Here we go..
Timo will be the new Juan Cuadrado.
hey Vacqui, I hope so! this seems like a great opportunity for him
i see the catch 22 as our players are now no longer bargain basement and so the value of many of the players in transfer now limits who can get them on the market to a select few. thing being those rich teams often have a bunch of players like them. this is why they are successful. it also makes them harder nuts to crack. this is one reason i think it’s important where they go on a “free” when they control their destination because once under contract they are corporate assets as much as ball players and the places that might play them may not want asset prices while the places that can afford asset prices may have other assets to compete with them.
With him potentially playing wingback for Juve that will further strengthen the USMNT on the right side. He will be a winger for the USMNT, but now we won’t have to fear Dest coming forward because Weah will have the ability to snuff out attacks as well.
from where, ahead of dest?
In Other news Bayern retracted Malik Tillmans Rangers purchase option with many teams looking to snap him up. Brentford and Brighton are circling for his signature.
worth noting they didn’t cancel the option for free, they will pay for the privilege. i was asking myself, how do you cancel an option, i just get to take it or not. sounded like a million pounds plus a percentage of any summer sale elsewhere. so maybe in a sneaky griezemann way he’s on loan again….or sold, we shall see…..
Speaking as an Italian Juve fan… I like this. Juve’s in dire straits financially and trimming down and going young, and I think they’d see him replacing Cuadrado who’s leaving. So he should mostly start.
Unfortunately Juve will probably be outside of Europe for a year. they qualified for the conference League, but there’s a solid chance UEFA will exclude them for a year as the European punishment for their sins, after the Italian federation’s 12 point deduction. But if he’s starting a lot domestically, that should still mean plenty of playing time.
Serie A should be a good match for him and help him grow defensively – both the defensive part of his game and in taking on tough defenses. Allegri’s teams may be boring as hell, but they’re defensively very solid.
McKennie, unfortunately, doesn’t appear in Juve’s plans anymore, also because Juve needs the money from selling him. There’s talk of interet from Galatasaray, which would suck… he can do better than that, and we’d rarely see him on TV. Let’s hope not.
Thanks for that. Wish there was a thumbs-up feature on this site. You’ll just have to imagine it.
With what Juve are asking for McKennie it’s hard to see him being sold. I could see a loan and buy option for him. I don’t think McKennie will agree a move to Galatasaray.
I like this move. Someone tell me what’s wrong with it.
If they play him as a FB and/or he’s taking Weston’s job.(I think Wes is moving anyway.)
Charlies Davies on the In Soccer We Trust pod said Weah told him he sees his club future at wingback. So this would make sense since Juve usually lines up with 3 in the back with wingbacks.
Weah has stated that he sees his long term future as a wingback. Hence why Juve snapped him up. But Weah can also play as a second striker which appeals to Juve as well.
I don’t have a big issue with him as a WB, just prefer he’s not playing as a FB as he was at Lille.
Zero clue. I’m never sure how these things are going to turn out. I’ve seen moves that looked absolutely perfect on paper turn into utter disasters – see everybody who got sucked into the Leeds vortex this past year – and I’ve seen guys make moves that I was like: “what is this guy thinking?” turn into gold. See Haji Wright at Antalyaspor, or how Pepi hit a brick wall at Augsburg and then resurrected his career in half a season blasting goals in for fun at Groningen.
If anybody knows how stuff is going to shake out, they’ve got a better crystal ball than I do.
On paper this is a good thing. Juventus went through big troubles last year and the upheaval would seem to give Weah a better chance than you’d get most years to establish himself at one of the world’s superpower clubs. Of course, he could also get himself buried on the bench too.
“if anyone knows?” it’s not complicated. look at the name on the team. look at their table rank. look at their roster. does it look like you are stepping into a hole or does it look like you are competition for existing players not leaving. if you sign chelsea or bayern or PSG do not kid yourself you are a special snowflake. they have 5-10 like you. if you are incredible, and few are, you burst out. if you are merely pretty good, numbers game. rotation, bench, loan. did i mention you are pretty good?
i already discussed above where i think the dynamic is different at different stages. a “free transfer” can calibrate his choice better, if they exercise self control. once under deal, i think it distorts things that you may be an asset your team wants max value for — not necessarily your best home — and the team able to pay the highest auction price in purchase may not be your best fit and may be able to afford more competition for you. in recent years we seem to chase the money and then have a higher degree of bench and loan situations. this is fairly predictable.
i mean, does no one notice the fulham boys playing in the world cup? versus steffen from city “out,” or pepi takes risk, pepi misses tournament. as long as the NT is club form obsessed it ironically looks to me like we reward seeing the field over ambition. the players then make ambitious choices. i thought richards looked good when he played for palace. all some people remember is how often he played off the stats sheet.
i see the tension as through about 2010 or so you would have been lucky to spend a year at dortmund or leverkusen or manU or whatnot before being cast off. most couldn’t even get signed there. so they got a lot of smaller team and lower division work, but they played, and that suited international ball. the polarities have flipped. we are in demand enough to get signed elite teams. it remains a steel cage match to see the field there that we are only somewhat more competitive within. so i see a tension between taking advantage of the new openness at prestige and high salary to our players, or seeking out “fulham” or “everton” gigs like we used to. and like i said, i see an increased transfer tag on our players where once they sign someplace it’s harder to climb down other than on loan. the very fact of being a CFC player makes you an expensive transfer asset. that shrinks the list of suitors. that doesn’t help you out of your jam that much.
i would like to see them run over to leading academies age 18, so they get elite teaching, but find a more comfortable home age 20-21, so they actually see the field, then work back up to the elite late 20s when they have a CV they can plonk down. landon late 20s had doors open landon age 18 was getting shoved out of. you show up having done things the bias drops and they have to take you more seriously.