Born in Naples on 10/03/88, graduated in Philosophy and Politics at the Oriental University of Naples. He has been working for TMW since 2008, he was deputy director for 10 years. Correspondent following the National Team
The Spain of records, talents, beautiful play and many triumphs opens new scenarios and repositions the red furies at the centre of the football world. After a brief period of crisis and rebuilding, the most successful national team in the history of the European Championship is once again at the top of continental football. “We are only at the beginning”, said de la Fuente during the night in Berlin. The goal is to start a winning cycle that is at least as important as the one 15 years ago, the aspiration is to also bring home those individual awards that in the era of Puyol and Torres, Xavi and Iniesta, were sensationally missing. When between 2008 and 2012 Spain dominated everything by winning two European Championships and a World Cup, they did not even bring home a Ballon d’Or: we were at the height of the Messi-Cristiano Ronaldo era and regardless that award for years was only their business. It can no longer be that way this time, evidently, with Rodri and Carvajal who after Berlin more than Bellingham have the right to the most prestigious individual recognition.
The Spanish team was also the one that launched a future number one onto the world stage and gave LaLiga a dualism that in the next 5-10 years could become as characterizing and polarizing as Messi-Cristiano Ronaldo was. Starting in August, on one side there will be Lamine Yamal, the child prodigy of Barcelona and this European Championship, the man of records and great plays. On the other, in Real Madrid, finally Kylian Mbappé, the great disappointment of the German nights. A striker who has lost himself behind his mask and now hopes in his new Spanish life to reaffirm himself as number one.
Spain always and in any case. The success in the European Championship will not only be able to restore appeal to a championship that has lost some of its shine in recent years, but above all it will deliver the most sought-after stars to this month and a half of the transfer market. Because we often talk about months and months of scouting to identify the objectives, of players who are chosen months in advance. But then the truth is that seven games like those of Spain are enough to review the hierarchies and overturn the objectives of the big clubs. Or four like those of Italy to produce the opposite effect.
Watch Alvaro Morata: a European like that of the Captain of Spain has convinced Milan to spend (not invest) 50 million euros for a centre forward of almost 32 years: they will pay Atletico Madrid the 13 million euros of the clause, they will pay the player approximately 36 million euros gross for the next four years.
Important figures, but not like those that Barcelona rejected for Yamal sheets: there are rumors that Paris Saint-Germain has been pushed (unsuccessfully) up to 250 million euros for the player’s registration alone. Nothing has happened, also because today for Barça giving up Yamal would mean giving up on themselves, on all possible future ambitions.
Robin LeNormand also thanks to this excellent European Championship he will become the new defensive linchpin of Atletico Cholo Simeone. The central defender born in ’96 who was close to Napoli in the past will leave Real Sociedad just like Mikel Merino: Arteta wants him at all costs in his Arsenal.
Then there is a long line of clubs ready to pay the release clause. Nico Williams: 55 million euros are definitely too little for a player born in 2002, for the best left winger of the European Championship. The same goes for Dani Olmo. His career seemed to be going to end in Leipzig after the last important contract renewal and instead now, thanks to the triumph of the red furiesseveral clubs have returned to the charge: he has a clause of 60 million euros, Manchester City are especially interested.
Other than scouting, in short. Such important competitions make or break the weather when there is a need to create market appeal. The counter-proof in this sense is Italy, the biggest disappointment of the European Championship. Federico Chiesa finds himself today in an even more stalemate than a month ago, for Scamacca, Raspadori and Retegui – our three centre forwards – not a leaf has moved after what happened in Germany. The only one to move so far among the players who took part in the German expedition was Alessandro Buongiorno, not even a minute played. It happened because Conte, as soon as he took office in Naples, put his name at the top of his list of purchases and the fact that he never took the field paradoxically favored the closure by preventing clubs from abroad (the usual Premier…) from being able to enter.
In Germany, only two Italian players have made a positive surprise: goalkeeper Gianluigi Donnarumma, who already plays for PSG and is already the highest paid goalkeeper in the world, and defender Richard Calafiori. And coincidentally, the latter is the only player from Spalletti’s squad who has a market abroad after what happened in Germany: Arsenal is close to closing the deal.