Aston Villa take on Juventus in the Champions League on Wednesday and it’s a much anticipated game in Italy.
Some months ago, Aston Villa and Juve were locked in negotiations for transfers involving Samuel Iling-Junior, Douglas Luiz, Enzo Barrenechea and Weston McKennie.
While Douglas Luiz joined Juve and Iling-Junior and Barrenechea joined the Villains, McKennie stayed in Turin.
Ahead of the game on Wednesday, Gazzetta dello Sport have looked at the background of negotiations involving the two clubs.
They state that everything started with Aston Villa sporting director Monchi being interested in McKennie and he also wanted the American during his time at AS Roma.
In talks with Juve for the 26-year-old midfielder, Monchi sought help from the club to bring in revenue by June 30th.
That is when the English club thought of inserting Douglas Luiz, because the Villains wanted to focus more on Youri Tielemans.
Then, Juve considered signing the Brazilian for a fee of €50m that would include Iling-Junior and McKennie. At that point though, the USA international wrecked plans due to ‘disproportionate’ demands from Monchi’s club.
After that, both the clubs decided that Enzo Barrenechea would be part of the deal and Juventus committed to paying €28m in cash to the Birmingham side.
While this helped Aston Villa financially and Juve also signed a player of Premier League experience, it is ironic that none of the players involved in the saga will feature in the Champions League tie on Wednesday.
Iling-Junior is on loan at Bologna and Barrenechea is at Valencia, with both Douglas Luiz and McKennie out injured.
