When Cristiano Ronaldo signed for Juventus, the sentence ‘anything can happen in football’ certainly became a bit more true.
The problem with this deal is that it’s given certain members of the Italian media, like Corriere dello Sport, ideas, and that’s never a good thing.
We say this because the newspaper now believe that after CR7, Juventus want to sign ‘CR8’, meaning a new number eight, should Miralem Pjanic leave, and on their list is Manchester United’s Paul Pogba.
The France international’s problems with José Mourinho are obviously mentioned to give their readers hope, as is a clause, we’re guessing buy-back(?), but that seems more in hope than anything else.
Pogba isn’t the only man on their list, as he’s joined by Sergej Milinkovic-Savic and Adrien Rabiot, who would both also be very expensive.
Would they be as expensive as the World Champion, however? We doubt it, as the 25-year-old’s tournament in Russia will have only made his valuation, in Ed Woodward’s eyes, go through the roof.
But, and this is very important, that might not be able to stop Juventus, who, according to Corriere dello Sport, could sell €300m worth of players between now and August 31st if they so wished.
Miralem Pjanic would, in their eyes, bring in around €100m, Daniele Rugani €55m and Gonzalo Higuain somewhere near €60m.
That’s a comfy €215m recouped, and you could maybe add Alex Sandro at €50m to that list if someone came knocking.
The problem is, there’s no guarantee (apart from maybe Rugani) any of these players will leave Juventus, nor that clubs will pay those fees for them, as exemplified with the Brazilian left-back.
Still, let a newspaper dream.