OFFICIALLY OFFICIAL: Juventus sign Douglas Costa outright from Bayern Munich

The completely obvious has now become the completely official.

Douglas Costa’s loan deal with Juventus is no longer a thing. That’s not a bad thing, honestly. Why? Because Juventus, as everybody who even has one single clue about how Costa played in his first season with the Italian champions, exercised their option to make the Brazilian winger’s loan move a permanent one on Thursday.

This is what we expected. This is what we wanted. This is what we’ve gotten.

Behold the details in the official wording from Juventus’ press office:

Turin, 7 June 2018 - Juventus Football Club S.p.A. has exercised the option right for the definitive acquisition of the registration rights of the player Douglas Costa de Souza from FC Bayern München AG for a consideration of € 40 million to be paid in two financial years. The consideration may increase of € 1 million on achieving given conditions in the course of the duration of the contract.

Juventus and the player signed a contract of employment until 30 June 2022.

If that €40 million plus another €1 million sounds familiar, it’s because it is. While some other deals may be re-negotiated based on certain circumstances, this the exactly same way things were laid out when the loan deal was still laid out back in July.

The agreement also provides Juventus the option right, to be exercised before 30 June 2018, for the definitive acquisition of the player at a price of € 40 million to be paid in two financial years. The consideration may increase of € 1 million on achieving given conditions in the course of the duration of the contract.

So, no surprises at all. Nothing close to it, really.

We expected this deal to go down — and it was exactly how the two clubs outlined it around 10 months ago.

And for how Costa played in the second half of the season, paying as high as €41 million for that level of skill seems like a relatively slim price to pay.

Costa was arguably Juventus’ best — and maybe more importantly the most consistent — player over the final four months of the 2017-18 season. We all had those moments of how “Holy crap Douglas Costa just did a thing” in the September, October, November and December months as Max Allegri slowly worked him into the squad. Those moments only got more and more frequent when Costa became a regular starter after the new year.

And boy did he make this an easy decision to pick up his option as a result.

Few players, if any, in Serie A can match the kind of skillset that Costa brings to the table. It’s the play-making capability. It’s the lightning-fast speed — especially with the ball at his feet. It’s the ability to set up his teammates. It’s everything that makes Costa the kind of player, when he was on the kind of form that he was from January onward, that makes him one hell of a player to have in your starting lineup more often than not.

Now, he’s a full-on Juventus player. As Juve’s official website said when they announced the deal, “Douglas Costa is now a Bianconero through and through!” Indeed he is.