Whether it's because of rumors stating there's outside interest from England, another transfer window is approaching or that there's no football around for at least another week, Domenico Berardi has been at the center of our respective Juventus-centric minds lately. There isn't much going on these days, and when it comes to talking about transfer rumors, Berardi's name has been quite the popular one lately.
He's been linked with coming to Juventus by just about every Italian media outlet there is. He's been linked with a move to England, most notably Tottenham or Liverpool. Shoot, there's even been some rumors of Barcelona being interested in signing the 21-year-old playmaker who has done so much in his two-plus years with Sassuolo in Serie A.
But the majority of the talk about where Berardi may go next clearly centers around Juventus. We've known that for quite a while knowing what we know about how Juventus co-owned then didn't co-own him and has a chance to buy him outright in the summer of 2016 before anybody else does. It involves reports that Juventus are confident of signing Berardi despite the aforementioned interest by Spurs and Liverpool. Now, those reports have been taken a step further...
La certezza della Juve: Domenico Berardi sarà bianconero a giugno per 25 milioni di euro. @la_stampa
— Massimiliano Nerozzi (@MaxNerozzi) December 29, 2015
Want a translation? Here's what Google Translate tells us what is being said above:
The certainty of Juve: Domenico Berardi will be black and white in June for 25 million euros
Okay, so, good, right?
When you consider how much money has gone back and forth between Juventus and Sassuolo over the last two or three years with the handful of Berardi deals they've conducted, the €25 million price tag is a little different than other transfer fees they've paid for other players in the past. In theory, the bulk of the fee will be paid with the funds that Sassuolo and Juve have exchanged over the past couple of summers.
And, more importantly, Juventus are more than just a little confident about Berardi joining their club in the summer. Like the report from La Stampa says, this is basically saying that Juventus are the destination and all the others can be seemingly thrown out the door at this point. Maybe that's just building off what came out the other day about Juve's feeling confident about signing Berardi, maybe this is entirely independent of that.
No matter what, I'll take this as a good sign even if we're still months and months and months away from the summer transfer window opening its doors. Heck, even if Juventus isn't expected to do much based on previous Januarys under Bappe Marotta's watch, we still have the winter transfer window to worry about first and foremost.