\n<\/p>\n
For a while there, this looked like the rare transfer that actually made sense on every level.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
Juve sent Tarik Muharemovic to Sassuolo on an initial loan two years ago, back when Carnevali was still running things on the other side of that deal. Sassuolo took up their option to buy him last summer, and the fee Juve accepted for a permanent move came with a 50 percent sell-on clause attached. So when Carnevali left Sassuolo to become Juve\u2019s CEO, he brought both a deep knowledge of the player and a built-in discount on getting him back. Not a bad position to negotiate from.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
And for a stretch this summer, it looked like it was actually going to happen. Juve had upped their offer to 30m, per Romeo Agresti, with Sassuolo still calling it too low but talks described as \u201cprogressing.\u201d The same report had Matteo Moretto saying Muharemovic had accepted a return to Turin, with Juve reportedly ready to offer a five-year deal. This was all playing out while Muharemovic was away with Bosnia at the World Cup, and when Bosnia went out in the round of 32 \u2014 a 2-0 loss to the U.S., with Weston McKennie involved \u2014 it read like the kind of result that would only speed a summer move along.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
Instead the price kept climbing. OneFootball\u2019s report on the widening gap<\/a> has Sassuolo\u2019s number moving from 30m before the tournament to 40m after it, with Juve capped at 15m \u2014 a \u201c25m gap,\u201d per the headline. I don\u2019t think that\u2019s the right way to look at it, though. Sassuolo would only net half the fee from any other club, so getting 15m from Juve is the same as 30m from someone else. Getting 20m from Juve is the same as 40m from someone else. Run the actual numbers being discussed through that math and the real gap is something like 10m, not 25m. Still a gap, just a smaller and more normal one than the headlines made it sound.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Whether that 10m gets bridged doesn\u2019t look like Juve\u2019s problem to solve anymore, though. That same OneFootball report, citing Luca Cilli, named Sunderland and Bournemouth as the clubs actually willing to pay closer to Sassuolo\u2019s number, with Juve conspicuously absent from that list. And in just the last day or so, Football Italia reported<\/a> that Leeds have jumped in front of the other English clubs entirely, citing Fabrizio Romano \u2014 they\u2019ve apparently presented an actual verbal proposal to the player and are prepared to match Sassuolo\u2019s ask outright, with Newcastle mentioned but trailing. This is fresh enough that I\u2019d expect the exact shape of it to keep moving, but the direction feels pretty settled at this point: Muharemovic is headed to the Premier League, and it\u2019s probably Leeds\u2019 deal to lose.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n So Juve are left with a sell-on payday coming their way and no obvious plan to spend it on the player it\u2019s tied to. Which puts more weight on the other centre back conversation they\u2019ve been having all along \u2014 Jhon Lucumi.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Lucumi\u2019s situation is almost a mirror image of Muharemovic\u2019s. Instead of a discount Juve control, there\u2019s a 28m release clause Juve don\u2019t seem willing to trigger, and instead of being the only serious suitor, Juve are one name on a fairly long list that\u2019s included Inter<\/a>, Roma and Bournemouth<\/a>, and Nottingham Forest<\/a> at various points over the past few weeks. Lucumi himself stayed out of it<\/a> while Colombia were still alive in the World Cup, telling Gazzetta it wasn\u2019t the time to get into it and that things could be discussed properly once he\u2019s back in Italy. Reasonable enough, given he was mid-tournament. Colombia have since been knocked out in the round of 16, on penalties to Switzerland, so that excuse is off the table and a decision presumably isn\u2019t far off.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n The interesting part here isn\u2019t really the player \u2014 it\u2019s what the whole sequence says about how Juve are approaching this summer at centre back. They had, in Muharemovic, about as favorable a deal as a club can construct for itself: a discount built in years in advance, a CEO who personally engineered it, a player reportedly willing to come back. And once the price moved against them, they walked rather than stretch for it. That\u2019s either encouraging discipline or a missed opportunity depending on how the defense resolves by the end of the transfer window, and right now it\u2019s genuinely unclear which one it\u2019ll turn out to be. Lucumi is the next name on the list, per the reporting, but he\u2019s not the only alternative out there, and Juve don\u2019t look positioned to force his deal either, not with this many other clubs circling and a release clause they haven\u2019t shown much appetite to pay. So the practical outcome of all this maneuvering might just be that Juve enter August still needing a centre back, having talked themselves out of the one deal that was actually built to their advantage.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n