Report: Brescia would ‘unleash an auction’ if Sandro Tonali is sold this summer

With an aging squad getting older by the week, it makes a whole lot of sense that Juventus’ front office would have their eyes on acquiring some young talent to go along with the likes of Dejan Kulusevski’s much-anticipated return from loan come the summertime.

And it’s fitting that one of those acquisitions could very well be in the midfield.

One of the names linked to Juventus in recent months has been Brescia much-talked about teenager Sandro Tonali, who is now getting his first taste of Serie A football even as his club is going to be spending the second half of the 2019-20 season trying not to get relegated. Reports in Italy last week went as far as to say that Juventus had pulled into pole position to sign the shaggy-haired midfielder who people have compared to another certain shaggy-haired (and bearded) midfielder who played for Juventus not so long ago.

No matter what, it’s going to cost quite a bit to sign Tonali over the summer.

And Brescia know it, too. Here’s the latest report from Sky Sport Italia’s Gianluca Di Marzio on the Tonali front, something that includes a rather interesting way of describing how the 19-year-old’s current club will determine his next club:

Sandro Tonali has captured the attention of various teams in Europe and Brescia President Cellino has no intention to let his star player leave in this transfer window. He would be open to let Tonali leave in the summer, which would unleash an auction for his signature. Interested clubs are Inter, Juventus, Paris Saint Germain (who would do something similiar like when they signed Verratti) and Manchester City and could open a bidding war for the player managed by agent Beppe Bozzo.

I don’t know about you guys, but seeing “unleash an auction” does in fact give me flashbacks to yesteryear when Juve were linked to a then-teenaged Marco Verratti after an impressive season at Pescara and he ended up going to the highest bidder, which turned out to be Paris Saint-Germain.

Verratti, also 19 years old when he went to France, cost PSG all of a reported €12 million back in the summer of 2012.

It’s going to cost a whole lot more than that to pry Tonali away from Brescia.

There haven’t exactly been any kind of general transfer fee range thrown out there by the Italian press just yet. In its report about Juventus being in pole position to sign Tonali, the Corriere dello Sport mentions that the teenager might have cost upwards of €35 million if somebody were to try and sign him last summer. Knowing that Tonali is a year older, has Serie A experience now under his belt and has broken into the fold for the Italian national team, it’s not like that €35 million figure is going to have gone down at all.

Throw into the fact that Di Marzio mentions PSG and Manchester City are both interested in Tonali along with Juventus and Inter, then the auction being unleashed is certainly a distinct possibility come the summer months.

Now we just wait and see if Juventus can win this auction for a talented teenager in the midfield. You know, unlike the last time this kind of situation was upon us eight years ago.