Report: Fiorentina ramping up interest in Gonçalo Guedes

This is probably the best time of year for idiotic transfer rumors, so we try to be pretty selective with what we actually write about here. However, sometimes there’s enough smoke to a fire that it bears a closer look, and that seems to be the case with Gonçalo Guedes. Numerous sources in Italy and Portugal have reported that Fiorentina are very interested, with Alfred Pedullà claiming that Gennaro Gattuso really wants the 24-year-old winger.

While there are plenty of other clubs reportedly interested, you can see why Ringhio would want the Portugal international. Guedes has everything you could ask for in a wide attacker: pace, technique, vision, shooting, and fantasia. He stacked up 7 goals and 6 assists for Valencia, which isn’t an okay but not great return, but los Murciélagos were so disjointed this year that you can’t hold it against him.

He’s never been as prolific at club level as his skill set suggests he should be (although he’s got 6 goals in 22 Portugal appearances) and hasn’t quite lived up to the hype he generated as a teenager, which led to a €30 million transfer to PSG in 2017. He never cracked the team in Paris, but they still flipped him for €40 million to Valencia in 2018.

He’s got 2 years left on his current contract and should be available for €20-25 million per the majority of rumors. It also helps that his agent is Jorge Mendes, who represents Gattuso and thus has contacts with the Viola and a vested interest in sending good players their way. Indeed, Ringhio’s thought to have specifically requested Guedes, which is another good sign.

Considering the dearth of wingers on the roster, he’d would be a massive upgrade for Fiorentina. If he can quickly develop a relationship with Dušan Vlahović and Gaetano Castrovilli, he could be the exact kind of guy this team should be targeting: young, relatively inexpensive, in need of some new scenery, and possessing the potential to explode into a top-notch player. If nothing else, it’s exciting to be linked to good players in their primes for the first time in too long and shows that there’s a lot more optimism around the club than there has been in years.