Beppe Marotta basically confirms Juventus will take up option to buy Rodrigo Bentancur next summer

It looks as though we’ve got our first Juventus signing for the summer of 2017. Pretty good considering that said summer transfer window doesn’t open for another 10 months or so.

In an interview before Juventus’ 2-1 loss to Inter Milan in the first Derby d’Italia of season on Sunday night, director general Beppe Marotta all but confirmed that the club will take up its option to buy Boca Juniors midfielder Rodrigo Bentancur. Following Boca’s president coming out earlier in the week and declaring the two clubs are in negotiations for the talented teenager, it has been widely reported that the deal will be done come the start of next summer’s transfer window, if not sooner than that.

Bentancur, a 19-year-old Uruguayan playmaker, was one of the handful of players included in a deal that saw Carlos Tévez return to Boca following a two-year run in Turin. There were other players involved that Juventus also had buy options on, but as of right now, Bentancur looks to be the only one who could very well have a future in Turin. (I guess Guido Vadala already did, but he’s gone back to Argentina, so who knows where that’s going.) Both Vadala and Bentancur have options to buy worth €9.4 million apiece that expire on April 20, 2017.

Options to buy two other Boca youngsters, Franco Cristaldo and Adrian Cubas, also expire around the same time.

There were also heavy rumors toward the end of the summer transfer window last month that Bentancur was going to be on his way to Serie A. That involved talk of Bentancur signing with AC Milan, not Juventus, though. Those talks obviously never truly came to fruition as Milan opted to go in another direction just when it seemed as though the Italian press thought that a deal was close to being completed.

Now, all signs point toward Juventus doing more business with Boca Juniors. Considering how highly thought of Bentancur is, maybe that shouldn’t be all that surprising. Either way, I feel safe in saying that this surely isn’t the last we’ve heard about Rodrigo Bentancur and Juventus.