OFFICIALLY OFFICIAL: Emre Can completes loan move to Borussia Dortmund

It didn’t take all that long into the 2019-20 season for Emre Can to voice his opinion about where he stands in the pecking order at Juventus. The first international break arrived, Can headed out on international duty with the German national team and, once the microphones turned toward the 26-year-old midfielder, he let his thoughts about being left out of the Champions League group stage squad fly.

And ever since that point, Can leaving the club seemed like it was only a matter of time.

That day, probably an at-long-last kind of feeling for Can after playing all of about 280 Serie A minutes this season, arrived on Friday, the final day of the January transfer window. Can is heading back to the Bundesliga after spending the last 5 ¹⁄₂ years in England and then Italy, the final 18 months of that stretch with Juventus. Both Juve and Borussia Dortmund announced that Can, who underwent his medical exams earlier in the day on Friday, has joined the German outfit on an initial loan deal with an obligation to buy come the beginning of the summer transfer window.

The initial loan deal will cost €1 million, with the price of the buy clause at €25 million plus potential bonuses.

The official wording of the deal, courtesy of Juventus’ website is as follows:

Turin, 31 January 2020 - Juventus Football Club S.p.A. announces that the agreement with Borussia Dortmund GmbH & Co. KGaA for the loan, until 30 June 2020, of the registration rights of the player Emre Can has been finalized for a consideration of € 1 million to be paid in 2019/2020 financial year.

Furthermore, Borussia Dortmund will be obliged to definitively acquire the player for a consideration of € 25 million, to be paid in three financial years, if given sport results will be achieved in the course of the 2019/2020 financial year.

And so ends Emre Can’s 18-month excursion to Italy. Hopefully he enjoyed it, although I’m guessing the last six or seven months haven’t exactly been the easiest to deal with.

It wasn’t supposed to work out this way when Can arrived from Liverpool two summers ago. As he entered his mid-20s, Can was looked at as a possible upgrade to Juventus’ midfield woes, with the kind of potential and skillset that not many of the other options on the roster had. Can’s first season in Italy was a mixed bag, but most forgettable with not many moments to write home about. And it didn’t get much better this season, with Juventus signing more midfield help and Maurizio Sarri clearly not valuing Can all that much at all.

That all came to a head when Juve left Can off the Champions League group stage squad list, resulting in the German midfielder lashing out and declaring that he was “shocked and furious” after the decision in September. Since then, Can has rarely played at all, starting all of two league games and picking up just as many yellow cards in those 280 or so minutes of game time.

It became awfully clear awfully quick that Can needed a move away from Turin as soon as possible once he voiced his frustration (and then voiced it again ... and again ... and again). And for Juventus, trying to get as much money they could for Can during the January transfer window was obviously a priority, thus causing the negotiations with Borussia Dortmund to go down to the very last day or two.

All told, it seems as though all parties have some kind of win here — Can got his transfer away from a club where he’s clearly not in the plans and Juve’s got some money to deposit in the bank account now. Win-win.