The rumour linking Bryan Cristante to European giants has finally got to Portugal. Even though the player still belongs to Benfica, local newspapers didn’t seem to know much before last week.
The situation is that Atalanta have a €4m buying option over the player. They would activate it by the summer so they can sell him to a rich club for over €30m.
The list of clubs who want him varies from source to source. For example, newspaper A Bola takes claims from Italy to say that Liverpool, Arsenal, West Ham and Watford would all be interested.
What A Bola also says, this time according to their own information, is that Atalanta are still to activate the buying option, and will leave it until the summer.
Meanwhile, newspaper O Jogo has a shorter, but stronger story on the player’s situation. They claim that the clause has already been activated, even though the Italian side will only start paying Benfica in the summer.
Regarding the interested clubs, the only Premier League side who gets a mentioned are Arsenal. Arsene Wenger’s club would have competition from Juventus, Inter Milan and Roma.
And even though the first reports said Atalanta planned to sell the midfielder for €30m, O Jogo now says it’s €35m. From that money, €5.25m would go to Benfica, since they would keep 15% of a future sale.
This is a story which seems to be taking form now, and the updates make it sound believable. Let’s just see if this list of pretenders is as real as Atalanta’s process to land the player permanently.
