:format(webp)/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/47566525/GettyImages-495137990.0.jpg)
When Juan Cuadrado hit the ground running — both literally and figuratively — to begin his Juventus career, you kind of figured it would be something that the Italian media would start to speculate about. Cuadrado is on loan, and clearly not wanted by Chelsea after his move to the English champions last all of about, oh, six months.
While Cuadrado — even with his goal against Torino over the weekend — has cooled off a little bit, the talk of him having more than just a one-season stay at Juventus hasn't died down by any means.
According to both Italian sports dailies Tuttosport and the Gazzetta dello Sport on Monday, Juventus want to make their acquisition of Cuadrado a permanent one. And not next summer, but come the January transfer window, which is quickly approaching come the turn of the calendar to 2016. Enough with the loan move for the 27-yard-old Colombian
Good move? Bad move? Wait-and-see-how-he-does-come-May kind of move?
Through 15 or so games, an argument for each of those scenarios can be made. At least I think that's the case.
Obviously Cuadrado has found a liking to being back in Serie A, a place where he was one of the best before his move to England and Chelsea. Is he €25 million good, though? That's the question ... and the reported release clause it would take to get Cuadrado's move to become permanent whenever a deal is going to potentially happen.
But, knowing how Beppe Marotta works, if that €25 million price tag that Tuttosport has any truth behind, then there's no way they're going to just hand over that kind of money to Chelsea. You know Marotta and Fabio Paratici will go into negotiation mode to try and get the price to a much more Juventus-friendly figure.
Who knows, though. If Cuadrado keeps being relatively productive, I don't doubt that Juve will try to sign Cuadrado come January or during the summer transfer window. There's truth to this, sure, but we just don't know when it will actually happen. Some will probably prefer it to be over the summer because we've seen Cuadrado play an entire season and the sample size is much better to gage just how Cuadrado may fit into the club's plans going forward next season.