Cuadrado Returns to Florence

Waiting For Cuadrado

As most Fiorentina players traipsed back to Florence this morning from their successful South American tour, one more player is due back who will steal the spotlight. It seems that the crucial, the DECISIVE week for Juan Guillermo Cuadrado is finally here... maybe. As all three of Andrea Della Valle, Daniele Prade, and Vincenzo Montella have said at some point this summer, all of Fiorentina hope that their most expensive ever purchase will stay, but they also all agree that the final say goes to Cuadrado. With Juan returning to Florence this week, FirenzeViola.it hypothesizes that the meeting will take place Thursday at the latest; the situation remains murky, however, since according to Fiorentina there haven't been official offers as of now (if we believe Fiorentina) for the 26 year old Colombian.

However the meeting goes, we can certainly expect Fiorentina staff to trumpet that Cuadrado wishes to remain in Florence later this week. Even if the World Cup star is intent on a move to Barcelona or Manchester United (the two most prominent suiters in recent weeks), there is no reason for our directors Prade and Macia to advertise the fact, as it would weaken our bargaining position. For his part, Cuadrado has enjoyed great growth and freedom in Florence and is expected to be offered a new deal with a higher salary upon meeting the Fiorentina bosses, and therefore would only be persuaded to leave for an ideal situation.

€40 million is the anticipated minimum fee that Fiorentina would accept for JC11, a player that we are under no constraint to sell. A potential sale however, would accrue a not-insignificant sum which could greatly change the color of the last weeks of the Viola mercato. Overall it's not a bad potential dilemma to have even if, all the same, we have to continue to wait to know for sure, at least for a little while longer.

Una Vita Per Un Mediano

Despite the Cuadrado stalemate, Fiorentina continue to eagerly and publicly be in the hunt for a central midfielder of substance that can bring balance to the side and take pressure off the likes of Borja Valero in making the team coherent. Montella will have been encouraged in seeing David Pizarro and Joshua Brillante express themselves positively in their appearances in preseason, but will still be hopeful that these two wildly different players will not make up the whole of his deeper midfield options.

The names that supposedly interest Fiorentina remain the same as they have in the past week or so, with Sassuolo's Jasmin Kurtic, Miguel Veloso, and Shakhtar Donetsk's Fernando all being linked to Viola interest, the last of which would easily be the most exciting of the three. Knowing how Prade and Macia function, however, the player we bring in may well be a complete surprise, although much may depend on whether or not Cuadrado departs for a sizable sum. For now we can only know that we are DEFINITELY hunting a high quality midfielder with the substance to match his more attacking counterparts.

Expanding German Markets

Ciro Immobile made the first big transfer news of the summer with his big money move from Torino to Borussia Dortmund, and only last week ex-Fiorentina and Napoli Valon Behrami signed for Hamburger SV (to my personal chagrin, as I would not have been opposed to the Swiss international returning to play for Montella). Fiorentina have now sent two of their own to Germany, although not to the Bundesliga. Both Marvin Compper and Ante Rebic will move to Second Bundesliga club RB Leipzig, with the young Croatian international only signed on loan. While Compper's story with Fiorentina is now done after a season of professionally conducted if unsatisfying service, Rebic will be expected to shine at the lower league club in order to compete for minutes (or for a transfer fee) next season in Florence.