Just a few days ago, reports surfaced regarding Marko Pjaca’s immediate future. No, not the ones where he was supposedly going to be used as a way to tempt Liverpool to part with midfielder Emre Can. It had to do with the fact that Pjaca would likely spend the second half of the 2017-18 season on loan to try and get regular playing for the first time since returning from his horrific knee injury last year.
It looks like the team where Pjaca will spend the winter and spring months is becoming more and more concrete.
According to Sky Sport Italia’s Gianluca Di Marzio and other media outlets in Italy, German side Schalke have emerged — quickly, I might add — as Pjaca’s destination to spend the next six months on loan. There was another report Tuesday that another Bundesliga side, Wolfsburg, could swoop in and snag a loan deal for Pjaca, but as the day went on it became pretty clear that Pjaca’s reported destination will be Schalke.
More from Di Marzio:
A new adventure on the horizon for Marko Pjaca. The Juventus player will be loaned out to Schalke 04 after he gave his consent. It's all set: there was a resolution of the recent question marks with Wolfsburg providing some competition. The Croatian player will be in Alicante on Thursday where the German team is practicing during their retreat.
Here is what Di Marzio said about the financial details of the move earlier in the day:
It will be a paid loan as the German club could pay up to 1.5 million euro for the Croatian. The base price is set at 1 million euro and then another 500,000 could be paid based on appearances. They will also takeover the player's entire salary during the loan period.
If you noticed in the above text, there is no mention of Pjaca staying with Schalke beyond the month of June. That means that this loan move is strictly an attempt by Juventus to get Pjaca more playing time, bring him back to Turin after the loan move is completed and see where he may fit into the squad for the 2018-19 season.
That is exactly what Pjaca needs right now as he still waits his first minutes on the field of the current campaign after playing with Juve’s primavera squad for a handful of matches in November and December. And for him to show the level of talent a lot of people thinks he has, he’s going to need regular playing time to develop and become a player that can make an impact at Juventus come next season.