Beppe Marotta confirms Juventus’ interest in re-signing Leonardo Bonucci

A few days back, the possibility of Leonardo Bonucci donning the Juventus colors for a second time wasn’t even in our thought process.

However, after an avalanche of rumors and plenty of speculation in the Italian media, we have gotten confirmation that it’s more than just conjecture from the not-so-reliable corners of the transfer window rumor mongers. And it just so happens that said confirmation has come from one of Juventus’ highest ranking front office members.

Beppe Marotta has spoken, and his words have told us that the Bonucci return talk is not just some media fabrication. It is, in fact, something that the seven-time defending Serie A champions are currently working on.

“Leonardo wants to come to us and we want to satisfy him. It’s a complicated negotiation though. We’re trying and we’ve offered [Gonzalo] Higuain to the Rossoneri, but without a positive result. I’ll be at the Lega Serie A for the fixtures tomorrow and we can talk.

“Mattia Caldara to Milan? He’s unsellable for us.”

(Source: Football Italia)

Obviously a lot of the talk has been about Bonucci, but that last sentence regarding Mattia Caldara is pretty damn good to see. (It sure would be nice to see Beppe say the same thing about Daniele Rugani, though. Just throwing that out there, folks.)

So, this Bonucci-back-to-Juventus thing is now ... a thing.

There doesn’t seem like any other way around it seeing as Marotta and his right-hand man, Juve sporting director Fabio Paratici, are spending a lot of time in Milan these days negotiating deals for Bonucci and Gonzalo Higuain as well. What comes out of it still remains to be seen, but the simple fact that 12 months after a very public divorce between Juve and Bonucci took place there might be a reunion between the two parties is just something I never expected to take place.

They’ve certainly had to re-build some bridges that were burned to the ground in the summer of 2017. Or maybe those bridges weren’t as torched as we thought they were at first. Either way, this wouldn’t be happening unless Bonucci and Juventus cleared the air and made it be known that a comeback was even possible after everything that was said.

In short: Jeez, this summer, man.