Manchester United think short term and sign the best defensive midfielder in the world.
Real Madrid is thinking long term and selling the best defensive midfielder in the world.
All we know is that someone will eventually feel cheated.
If someone said that before the summer transfer window Manchester United The purchase of Casemiro from Real Madrid – and thus the sacred midfield separation of the Bermuda Triangle at the Santiago Bernabeu – may have been dismissed with laughter.
He would probably be dismissed with laughter even if it was said a week ago. Because who really saw this coming?
But now we are sitting here.
After 15 weeks of waiting for Frenkie de Jong and through bizarre negotiations with Adrien Rabiot, we find ourselves in the position of Manchester United signing one of the best defensive midfielders in the world. In my opinion the best.
The ball-winning midfielder has been cut and drained to become the defensive midfield announcer the club has been shouting about for years.
At the same time, Manchester United will pay $ 700 million for a short-term solution to the crisis for 30 years.
You can call it “chance”
It is undeniable that one wonders how United will operate given that the club have previously pursued midfield profiles that are nowhere near the ones they are getting now. In addition, the fact is that Casemiro joins the same premise as Raphael Varane did a year ago – with all that can be earned already printed in the biography. With the possibility of a contract with a term and a salary that only very few players over the age of 30 can get in Madrid.
In other words, you could ask how hungry he really is.
In this way, it can still be called a “chance”. The road to “risk taking” screams of desperation, panic, and a lack of rigor. But the question is whether United, in the crisis they are going through and with the team’s shortcomings, can get a better player given the needs that exist.
It can turn into a dream signature for a dream signature. It must be. But we said that about Angel Di Maria, too.
gift from above
Even from Real Madrid’s perspective, the feeling is contradictory.
If there’s one thing the Champions League champions have been incredibly adept at over the years, it’s that he sells at the right time and doesn’t let sentimental values dictate the team’s planning.
After all, this is the team that dropped the average central defender on one plate a year ago – and in hindsight did exactly the right thing. That team sold 33-year-old Cristiano Ronaldo for a billion – and did the right thing there, too.
Such a big offer for the 30-year-old Casemiro, when his future replacement (Aurelien Chuamini) has already been signed in the summer, is too good to refuse. Even if the outward narrative is that you do not want to stand in the way of your faithful servant’s will, you will likely see the offer of the United States as a gift from above that you will never return.
But even if they laughed all the way to the bank, the question is how much on the field they would laugh.
Are you chomini?
Luka Modric and Toni Kroos in all their glory, Casemiro has been one of the most important individual players in the club’s success in recent years. He is the player who has to be on the pitch for Real Madrid to work. The player who does the hard work that allows his most elegant teammates to shine in peace and quiet. It is the balance of the team in the individual form.
Is Chomini now ready to take on the enormous responsibility? Are Real Madrid really ready to move on from the holy midfield trinity and move towards the future? Will Real Madrid finally regret taking the money when they see Casemiro dominating midfield battles in a red shirt and realize they really should have kept him? Or will Florentino Perez be hailed again as a genius when it turns out United bought a pig in a sack?
I find it hard to see a scenario where someone doesn’t feel cheated out of the benefit of hindsight.
