Julian Alvarez will play in the Manchester City from the middle of the year: although there are still 69 days left for the English club to contractually have the possibility of taking him back in exchange for the execution of a clause, it is a fact that the Cordovan will join the Citizens for the next preseason. But in case further proof of the impending exodus was needed, MCFC added Calchinense as part of the squad on its official site.
Entering the “teams” tab of the web site of the Manchester City you can see the makeup of the staff that Pep Guardiola has available. There are the 22 players who are part of the usual calls and also the three players on loan: Kosovar goalkeeper Arijanet Muric (currently with Adana Demirspor in Turkey), Dutch defender Philippe Sandler (at Feyenoord) and Álvarez himself.
Now, the substantial difference between the case of Julián and those of Muric and Sandler is that in his case he does not have a number assigned for the following season. And with some logic: Although in the biography it is stated that the player signed his contract in January 2022 and that he is on loan at River, he has not yet officially been presented at the Ethiad Stadium in Manchester.
Screenshots from the Manchester City website.
However, the fact that the striker appears as a member of the squad -the squad in English- is a sign in itself of what Guardiola anticipated in dialogue with the podcast of Ole and Spotify.
“If we hire him, it is to have him with us. There is a fundamental question: we believe that he is a player for us. Julián smells like a goal and goals are worth money. At City they saw him as an opportunity for the future, in the next preseason he will be with us “the City coach had advanced.
“I see him on TV but I want to see him on the pitch with his teammates, with what we want him to do… If we were not convinced we would not have bought it. We want it yes or yes. The reports we have are exceptional. How he moves in short spaces and how he defines is something very difficult to find,” added Pep on March 9.
Those declarations of Guardiola were somehow endorsed by Jorge Brito. After having held a meeting in Madrid in April with Ferrán Soriano (executive director of the MCFC), Txiki Bergistain (Football Director), Joan Patxi and Omar Berrada (CEO of the CG), the president was able to state that “From the formal point of view, they will inform us about the date, but from the gesture and the conversation, everything would indicate that Julián is going to leave in the middle of the year”.
The clause that enables City to recover Julián
Screenshots from the Manchester City website.
In the purchase agreement between City and River a repechage clause was established which allows the English club to interrupt the assignment initially scheduled until December. The documents stipulated that the MCFC has the power to recover it by paying from July 7 (that is, the day after the second leg of the Libertadores round of 16). the total sum of 1.5 million euros.
Manchester City had invested US$24,241,457 in the signing of Álvarez. River will receive US$19,246,890 (17 million euros). And in the treasury, after all, At first, there will be US$18,246,890 left because in the agreement in which 15% of the pass was transferred to the Atalaya de Córdoba club US$1,000,000 had been set as a ceiling for that portion of economic rights.
