So long, farewell, arrivederci, goodbye. Oli Coates waves off some of the biggest stars to depart Serie A this summer.
Following Italy’s success at Euro 2020, Serie A is the place to be once again in European football. However, it appears that not everyone agrees. Here we take a look at some of the biggest names to depart the Italian top flight so far this summer, as well as one big name who could follow suit in waving goodbye to the peninsula.
Gianluigi Donnarumma
Number one on the list is Italy No. 1 Gigio Donnarumma, who is also quite literally the biggest and perhaps best player to leave Serie A during this transfer window. Named Player of the Tournament at Euro 2020, the goalkeeper left Milan as a free agent at the end of June and was swiftly snapped up by Ligue 1 giants Paris Saint-Germain. His departure from Serie A leaves a big hole not only in the Rossoneri’s goal, but also in many Italian hearts after his heroics for the Azzurri.
Achraf Hakimi
Another big player to leave the city of Milan for PSG, Hakimi departs Inter after only a single season at San Siro. The Nerazzurri have turned a tidy profit on the talented Moroccan though, reportedly receiving a fee of €71m having only paid Real Madrid €40m for his services a year ago. The 22-year-old’s place will primarily be filled by former Milan youngster Matteo Darmian, who’s turned last season’s loan deal from Parma into a permanent deal, but is a very different proposition to Hakimi at right-back.
Rodrigo De Paul
Argentina international De Paul spent five years as an Udinese player, making a total of 184 appearances while scoring 34 goals and contributing 36 assists in all competitions. The playmaker replaced Kevin Lasagna as the Bianconeri’s captain last season, but leaves the Stadio Friuli for La Liga champions Atletico Madrid. With 29 appearances for his country, De Paul will be a big miss for Luca Gotti’s side, even though his fee swells the coffers by €35m.
Cristian Romero
After a somewhat strange and drawn-out transfer saga, Argentina international Romero has finally left Serie A for the Premier League. The 23-year-old centre-back was one of the best defenders in Italy’s top flight last season, excelling for Atalanta on loan from Juventus before winning the Copa America with his country over the summer. La Dea activated their option to buy Romero a year early, paying Juve €16m before turning a tidy profit in selling him on to Tottenham for an initial fee of €50m plus another €5m in add-ons.
Romelu Lukaku
Finally, to one of the biggest transfers in world football yet to happen this summer. Inter striker Lukaku seems set to follow former coach Antonio Conte straight out of the San Siro exit door in the wake of the Nerazzurri’s first Scudetto in a decade. The big Belgian has reportedly asked Inter to accept Chelsea’s final offer for him, as he sets his sights on a return to Stamford Bridge some seven years after leaving the Blues for Everton. Losing their top scorer would be a massive blow for Inter, will little assurances the majority of his vast transfer fee would be reinvested in the squad.
Hakimi and Donnaruma were significant losses. Although I don’t think Hakimi is worth as much as PSG paid – I think part of the price is his potential as a young player, so his career could go either way. De Paul is 27, at the peak of his career, yet is still fairly inconsistent, and sometimes makes stupid decisions on the field (i.e. red cards). Don’t get me wrong, he’s a good player, but I don’t think he would’ve been a starter on Juve, Inter, nor Milan. It was nice to have him at Udinese to show the depth of our league, but for the money offered it was best to get rid of him (I doubt he will ever be worth more than that). Lukaku would be another significant loss, more so because he would lost due to bad management. Inter has been managed poorly before, but Zhang really messed things up this time. How could you lose control of your budget so quickly? They’ve had plenty of time to adjust for the pandemic. The only saving grace is that Lukaku is 28 and might start to show signs of slowing down (in terms of growth) soon. But it would be better if he stayed. It’s really hard to compete with English teams and their massive TV rights. I think it will be another decade or so until Italian teams can start to compare financially to the English. We just need to stay competitive until then.
The state of club football is ridiculous. The most money and corruption wins, hence the current Premier League and PSG domination. The only thing that really matters now is international football, where England will always be losers and Italy, Germany, Spain winners. Middle Eastern oil nations can’t take that away.
unfortunately serie gets worse season after season
Serie A is the most underrated and most difficult league in the World. Every player/manager that works in the league says so. Football is not the football that a lot of people used to know. Now it’s marketing, promotion and selling it’s soul. It’s been doing this ever since Sky/and self titled ‘best league in the world’ started pushing itself across the World. Add the Americans looking to get involved along with all the other rich people looking to make quick money and we’re left with what we see today. Players come and go but the league stays and if you actually watch it, you can see it improves each season. I could put so much more, i’m just tired of having to defend the league every season and hearing the ‘if you thought Serie A was defensive’, ‘who said Italian football is not attacking’, etc every single year. Catenaccio disappeared a long time ago. Now everyone wants to play the same. I will not miss the players who go for an easier life and bigger pay cheque. If that’s what they want… fair enough, but the players who play in Serie A, as well as those who manage the teams, improve. I wouldn’t call this tragic, at least, not including the free transfers, the value is better than has been in the past for players leaving the league. If you don’t like or enjoy the league, your choice. Italy always has to do things the hard way . If they were given a Euros/World Cup and with it the money to do up the stadiums, etc. The status of Serie A will be back up there as the best league in the World.
Euros proved Italy and Serie a is the best. the recent times bottom was 4-5 years ago.
wage cap would rejuvenate football a little.
I expected it to be bad this summer, but this is even worse than I thought. The league (although exciting and high-scoring) was already weak in European terms, and is now worse.
The Euros win only papers over the gaping cracks of one of the worst-run leagues around. There may be several top players in Italy (many leaving now), but there are certainly no top teams.
115m for a 28yo Lukaku is a good price, but the problem is we could well see rubbish arriving to replace him and Hakimi. If Inter think Correa, Zappacosta, and Darmian are going to keep them top, then they’re in serious trouble.
And what must Bastoni, Barella, Martinez, and Skriniar be thinking? They’ll be off over the next few years if Inter continue on this path.
Juve are broke too, Milan are scrounging around as usual, Napoli and Roma doing little, Atalanta buying quite well, but selling their best defender to a ECL club.
It’s sad to see oil clubs spending whatever they want while others go broke during Covid, but football is gone that way.
The only hope might be Italy winning a bid for a tournament, because that’s the only way I see the clowns “running” Italian football doing anything about stadiums. And even if they do, expect them to do the minimum – probably a paint job and new seats. Unfortunately, Turkey and England are far better placed to host a competition.
Expect a tough season in Europe this year. Looks like the epl has taken La Liga’s top spot that they held for so long, and Serie A is nowhere to be seen where it matters.
Donna is the worst part of the transfer window. As for the rest they can leave.
My interest is solely on gli Azzurri so the way I see it the more foreign players that leave the better.
Either bring in the best or use home-grown talent. Perfect opportunity in my opinion.
For all the disparaging of Serie A remember that, according to UEFA coefficient, Serie A is third behind the PL and La Liga. (So in theory the ‘third best’ league in Europe – and the world really) It’s still a long, long way behind the PL however. The only way to catch up is to encourage oligarchs and oil states to invest in the league – if that’s what you want. Or sort out the infrastructure. Milan, Rome and Napoli should all have new, modern facilities by now.
Everything is about the all mighty $. Serie A problem is not the quality of the league, it’s the quality of the production. Old stadiums, poor camera site lines, terrible TV deals, and a problem in in my opinion is language. English and Spanish are spoken more across the world and it’s natural to watch/cheer on someone you can understand. Serie A had 2nd generation fans from Italian immigrants but now the 3rd generation has lost the love for the team that Nonno cheered for.
Agree to Jimmy_Stallion, Serie A Forever and Feroli above.
Time flies, Modern football is all about money and politics. For sure EPL is a shiny league but I never care about EPL because I believe that the quality of a league should reflect to the national team, its not the other way around. If you see in the last Euros, gli Azzurri and players from Serie A totally dominate the stats which indicate we still have high standards. I just wish that our major clubs stop buy old players, upgrade their stadiums and Serie A to overhaul its broadcasting system. These are mandatory before we even think about competing financially.
So declining financially, yes but this still depends on how you see it. Technically? No. As @Serie A Forever points out, we are one of the most difficult leagues out there nowadays. And as long as gli Azzurri are doing great and we dont stop producing real talents (which what happens now and I mean REAL talents, PLEASE dont get mixed up with “overhyped” ones), we are doing absolutely great.
Forza Italia per sempre from Indonesia
Some Top Clubs and I mean on top financially believe that paying and overpaying for players is the answer to all their failures. PSG is now a international all star team. Mbappe,Neymar,Messi,Ramos DiMaria,Verratti and on and on ,yet they have failed to win the CL and even lost the league title.
Why did Italy win the Euros…. Confidence especially from Mancini and staff, that he transferred to his players, belief in the team concept,hard work and pride. That wins regardless of who’s on the pitch.
The Premier League &, PSG will learn this lesson the hard way.You just can’t throw stars together and buy championships. There is a reason that Diego Simione a great coach & winner remains in Madrid.
He knows that teams are a reflection of the values of hard work,skill and coaching, Not paychecks.
@Del Piero.
De Paul and red cards? In his entire career, De Paul has been sent off 4 times. 4 red cards in nearly 300 first team games since starting off at Racing. Udinese literally deployed him in multiple positions in their midfield due to his qualities and flexibility. He has played as a centre mid, right winger, attacking mid, left wing, left midfield, right midfield, second striker, as well as a defensive midfielder in a few coppa Italia games. He has never been a player who has lacked discipline. In fact, 7 is the max number of yellows he has ever picked up in a season and that was back in the 18/19 season. De Paul got cautioned only 3 times the whole of last season, and he played 36 matches in Serie A. Did you confuse him with someone else? 🤔
Also. ‘Fairly inconsistent’? 11 assists and 9 goals last season. 6 assists and 7 goals the previous season and 7 assists and 9 goals the season before that. A player playing for a team that let’s be honest starts every campaign with the target being salvation first, and one that hasn’t finished higher than 12 for 8 seasons in a row. De Paul is not Messi, but he’s a fantastic player. He would most definitely be a starter at Milan.
@TorreDG: Don’t make me laugh talking about Simeone – when you say” He knows that teams are a reflection of the values of hard work,skill and coaching, Not paychecks.” he is there at Athletico because he gets paid 32 million euros gross a season !!! and you really have the audacity to say not paychecks ????????