The biggest question as Juventus headed into the final day of the summer transfer window was an obvious one: Could they really, after everything that they’ve done over the past week and couple of months, actually sign Manchester United’s Jadon Sancho. A move for Sancho, the once-incredibly hyped English teen star, would have meant adding another talented winger to a roster that has already added two very talented players over the last seven days.
But what Friday brought us was that Sancho did end up changing clubs. He just didn’t change his address for the next nine or 10 months (at minimum) to something in Turin.
Juventus’ bid for the 24-year-old Sancho ended up fizzling out rather than ending with one final officially official post around these parts. Instead, Sancho is all lined up to join one of United’s biggest Premier League rivals, Chelsea, on an initial season-long loan deal that has yet to be announced as of this writing. It is reported to be a done deal with an obligation to buy at £25 million set for next summer.
That meant that the biggest piece of business that Juve could have completed on Deadline Day resulted in a relatively quiet ending to a very, very intense and crazy summer mercato in which much of the roster Thiago Motta now has to work with is brand new.
And that also wasn’t the only thing that didn’t involve a transfer to or from Juventus taking place.
Tiago Djaló heads to Rome but doesn’t sign with Roma
You had to figure something was up when Djaló — who has all of one Juventus appearance to his name since signing with the club in January — was more than a little cryptic when asked about signing with Roma after undergoing his medicals.
“I don’t want to talk now. I’ll do it later on,” Djaló told reporters.
That man knew something was up — and something definitely ended up being hinky about what Roma were doing.
It turned out that Djaló was basically parked in a hotel in Rome as Roma worked on trying to get other deals done. Ultimately, all of the waiting caused the deal for Djaló to collapse and leaving a player in which Juventus was hoping to potentially loan out on the final day of the window now coming back to Turin with a bit of an uncertain future.
Could Juve bring him back into the squad for some much-needed depth and versatility across the backline? Maybe, but it’s hard to say whether things are still on decent footing with the Juve management after everything that has happened of late.
Then again, with Roma coming to Turin in a couple of days, maybe Djaló will want to get a crack at the club that basically played him a bit and didn’t seal the loan deal to Rome.
Filip Kostic wants to try and fight for a spot at Juventus
Juventus were not reportedly lacking when it came to suitors trying to sign Kostic, the Serbian wingback who signed with the Bianconeri two summers ago but didn’t have a place in Motta’s squad.
What was lacking was Kostic’s approval to go ... anywhere other than the club that currently employs him.
It didn’t matter if it was a big from Southampton in the Premier League or a big-money contract from Saudi Arabia, Kostic reportedly turned down pretty much every club that was even in the slightest bit interested in signing the 31-year-old Serbian winger who is coming off a tough 2023-24 campaign in which he didn’t score a goal and recorded just four assists, his lowest total since 2017-18. Reports out of Italy just before the deadline arrived said that Kostic instead wants to try and convince Motta that he can be a contributor to this season’s squad.
Where he would fit in isn’t exactly clear. Or if that will even be possible considering Kostic has been on the market all summer and was one of the more notable names on Juve’s list of players who weren’t in the project going forward this year.
Like another player who didn’t move somewhere else on Deadline Day, Brazilian midfielder Arthur, Kostic is very much a candidate to move to a league that still has its transfer window open. Whether he will accept a move there remains to be seen, though.
Pair of former Next Gen standouts Nonge, Hasa join new clubs
Joseph Nonge and Luis Hasa were two very well known names for anybody who has been following talents coming through the Juventus primavera and Next Gen squads the last couple of years.
Ultimately, it is there where there adventures at Juventus will end.
Hasa was sold outright for €1 million to Lecce, while Nonge has joined Troyes in Ligue 2 on a season-long loan deal that includes an option to buy next summer.
At this time last year, both players looked like they could potentially contribute to the senior team in some shape or form if their development went right. Hasa had a solid 2023-24 season with the Next Gen squad, but ultimately never agreed to the long-term contract extension that Juventus had been in talks with his camp about for an extended amount of time, reports in the spring stated.
Who is Hasa’s agent you might be wondering? Well, that would be Fali Ramadani, the same guy who saw another one of his clients that used to call Juventus home, Federico Chiesa, leave 24 hours earlier when he signed with Liverpool for a cut-rate price.
Nonge did get a handful of call-ups to Juventus’ senior team last season during the depth crunch as a result of Paul Pogba’s doping suspension and Nicolo Fagioli’s gambling ban. For the vast majority of those call-ups to the matchday squad, Nonge was an unused sub. He made just four appearances of the bench for Max Allegri — two in Serie A, two in the Coppa Italia — with the second and final of which being against Napoli in early March. It was that game in which Nonge’s tackle led to the game-winning goal from the penalty spot by Giacomo Raspadori just before second-half stoppage time.