Soccer is changing. Traditionally, the futures of soccer players have been managed in a simple way: Before starting a final year of the contract, it was necessary to decide whether to approach a renewal or a sale. That remaining course exerted pressure for the negotiations. For the club it meant the responsibility of extending the contract or selling it, but not doing any could mean that the footballer would leave at zero cost. Is praxisunorthodox ten years ago, is becoming routine. And the most recent to ride the wave of the latest fashion has been Asensiowhose contract with Real Madrid ends in 2023 and his future… is still up in the air.
The Balearic, concentrated with Spain, offered a Press conference last Tuesday in which he dropped the bomb. “The situation is clear with you: he knows that Madrid either renews him or sells him, but it won’t let him out for free,” said a journalist. What AsensioWith a serious face, he replied: “There is a third possibility. Stay and fulfill the year that I have left on my contract”. That response, in an information from The spar, did not sit well in Madrid. “I get the feeling that these new statements are agreed upon with his agent. The club does not contemplate that it stay a year without renewing and the Mendes-Real Madrid relationship is not going through its best moment,” said journalist Antonio Romero.
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Jorge Mendes appears
And in this sense there is a key question: Marco Asensio changed his agent a few months agoleaving the negotiations of its future in the hands of Jorge Mendes. Specifically, on April 23. That day he published a text in which he affectionately said goodbye to Horacio Gaggioliwhich until now has been not only a fundamental piece of his life, but also of his sporting past -and present-. With Gaggioli he arrived in Madrid, without going any further. “You have been a fundamental part so that I can achieve my dream and I will never forget everything you have done for me. You are part of my family and that is not going to change,” she wrote. The ‘breakup’ was by mutual agreement, not at all traumatic. But the conclusion was that the new representative of Asensio, now, is Jorge Mendes.
a new fashion
At this time, the only certainty is that Asensio has decided to join a trend that has had many faces in recent history. Within Madrid, without going any further, two proper names: Sergio Ramos and Isco. The camero took the negotiations of his future to the edge, entering the last year of the contract without renewing or saying goodbye. His departure to PSG is already known by all. Like Isco will not continue next season. But in Chamartín, aware of this new current, they have chosen to fish in it. Proof of this is that many of the latest signings are being footballers in that situation; who have arrived for free after finishing their contracts. For example, Alaba or looking more at the present, Ruediger. The signing of Mbappeultimately frustrated, was riding these same rails.
This transfer market has multiple players who have finished their contracts without making a decision yet. The one with the highest value, according to indexes of Transfermarktes Pogba (55 million), who in three weeks will be a free agent and whose future, as AS told several weeks ago, seems linked to a return to Juventus. Precisely from Turin you can leave Dybala, whose next step could follow in Italy, specifically, at Inter Milan. His contract with Juve, where he arrived in the summer of 2015 from Palermo, ends on June 30. Another current example would be Say Mariarecently fired from Paris after ending his relationship with PSG: he plays with the Barça option, but it seems that he has opted for Juventus as the main option.
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Messi, the great example
But the greatest model, as far as media dimensions are concerned, was undoubtedly Leo Messi in 2021. The Argentine entered his last year of contract with his future in the air. It hadn’t renewed; she had not announced his goodbye. He played that season knowing that on June 30 he was free. And he ended up leaving for Paris. Barcelona saw how the best footballer in its history left without leaving a euro in the coffers. That way he seems to be going now Dembéléwhose decision is still unknown, according to his own representative, who took the opportunity to ask “respect” to the clubs when giving an opinion about their client. Chelsea seems to be on pole for signing him. They are examples and examples of footballers who experienced the “third possibility” that Asensio speaks of: staying and playing the last year of the contract, without making a decision beforehand. A trend that is already fashionable.
