Transfer market, Inter on Cancelo: the Portuguese can return

Journalist

December 31st – 00:23 – MILANO

That old distant friend should be thanked, he did a favor almost without wanting it. In year I post-Inter, there in the Saudi retreat, Simone Inzaghi broke up, rather blatantly, with Joao Cancelo, an overpaid winger from Al-Hilal and with a happy Italian past along the A4, Milan-Turin. From that storm in the desert, a warm breeze arose and arrived here, also rather unexpected in the Nerazzurri home: the 31-year-old Portuguese has, in fact, suddenly become a possible opportunity for a club looking for a right winger to cover the chasm left by Denzel Dumfries’ injury. Come what may, the Cancelo case will shake up the January transfer market because Joao has now decided to leave his compound in Riyadh: he wants to play much more than he expects with Inzaghi, even more so with a place for the last CR7 World Cup still to be won. He would like to do it in Europe and his super agent Jorge Mendes has been moving for days like a diplomat between the main chancelleries of the continent.

SALARY ROCK

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Inter is one of these, partly because Cancelo had found himself well at Appiano, when in 2017-18 he showed the first hints of rare talent, and partly because even the Nerazzurri have never stopped regretting his instinctive creativity. The two needs fit together, also from a temporal point of view, and Inter don’t even mind the formula with which Joao could pack his bags again after only a year and a half in Arabia: they are thinking of a loan until the end of June, so as to secure this season and have time to plan the next one. The donkey falls, or rather collapses in the desert, when faced with the maxi-salary that the Saudis offered to Joao to convince him to leave City in the summer of 2024: the Portuguese earns 15 million net per season, an unattainable mirage for Inter in this era. In any six months of the loan that amount should, yes, be divided in half, but it still remains too high for the standards of the house. Any negotiation would therefore presuppose a participation in the engagement by Al-Hilal himself: it is the decisive point, the Arab crossroads on which everything depends. Obviously, the will of the winger himself, also courted by another ex such as Barça, will also weigh.

Arabic sparkles

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The Joao-Simone relationship immediately blew up, right from the first championship match at the end of August, which came after a surprising Club World Cup: there in the United States the team had stunned by reaching the quarter-finals, thanks also to an old-fashioned Cancelo. In his debut in the Saudi Super League against Al Ryiad (2-0 win), however, Inzaghi had taken him off a few minutes from the end and, in response, the Portuguese had gone into a rage: kicks and punches on the bench, objects thrown to the ground before being calmed down by the coach himself. From that moment on, he was quickly placed in a corner and returned to see the field only in the Asian Champions League, where he scored the only miserable goal of the season: too little after years of honorable service between Inter, Juve, City, Bayern and Barcelona.

needed now

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In this shaky scenario, Cancelo inevitably ended up on the Nerazzurri shopping list, but he certainly doesn’t suffer from loneliness: in looking around, president Beppe Marotta and sporting director Piero Ausilio explore different profiles in a highly strategic role. In short, the great ex is just one of the names monitored in the short term, imagining the Atalanta player (now on loan at Cagliari) Marco Palestra as a big (and expensive) dream for next season. For the moment, the Nerazzurri right wing is terribly lacking because Dumfries will only return in mid-March and Luis Henrique has started 7 games in a row in which, however, he has never made anyone jump out of their seats, despite some small flashes. The goal, far from easy, is to find someone who is immediately ready for Chivu and reproduces the happy pattern tried with Akanji. Among other things, compared to Cancelo, the Swiss is only a year younger: for such reliable players, even more so if they are only useful for a short period, Oaktree’s ruling would fall (the fund frees up real resources on young players). If anything, it is the salary that makes the difference, together with the timing: at Inter, Cancelo would be needed immediately, at the beginning of January, perhaps before the gravitational battle of the 11th with Napoli. In a team that now leans to the left, squeezing Luis Henrique alone for much longer could, in fact, become counterproductive. Old friends know how delicate these balances are, if anything, Saudi employers will now need to be convinced.