Report: Juventus has begun its ‘hunt’ to sign Udinese’s Rodrigo De Paul

Juventus’ front office and new manager Andrea Pirlo reportedly had a meeting on Friday.

As you can probably guess, the squad that Pirlo will have to work with when preseason training starts in just a few weeks. Just what that squad will end up looking like remains to be seen considering the economic circumstances we know the club is under a a result of the coronavirus pandemic.

But there’s gotta be some more additions, right?

According to Sky Italia’s Gianluca Di Marzio, some of Juventus’ business in the upcoming weeks could be with an old buddy of ours, with the nine-time defending Italian champions identifying midfielder Rodrigo De Paul as player they would like to add to the fold this summer. De Paul, who turned 26 years old back in May, has been linked with Juventus a handful of times over the past few weeks when Maurizio Sarri was still the club’s manager. But now that Pirlo has been promoted from the Under-23 squad to the senior squad with Sarri’s ousting, there’s plenty of speculation as to just what he might have in mind.

From Di Marzio’s report:

A prime topic of conversation was around adding an attacker, Milik is a name that is being considered. There could be talks moving forward with Napoli, but there remain other options in play. The other objevtives for the bianconeri are to reinforce midfield further after the arrivals of Arthur and Kulusevski. There is a hunt underway for a mezz’ala such as De Paul, but there would be difficulty in landing the particular player from Udinese.

Doing business with Udinese, you say?

Hello again, old friend. It’s been a while.

Long-time readers of this here blog will remember the days when it seemed like Juventus’ transfer business would somewhat center around deals that would or wouldn’t happen with Udinese. There have been plenty of millions of Euros sent from Turin to Udinese during this current Scudetto run. It may have been a few years since one of those deals took place, but don’t you forget that Udinese has certainly played its role in helping form the rosters under Antonio Conte and the early Max Allegri years.

With De Paul, he would give Juventus something that their midfield doesn’t have — a legitimate threat to score goals in 34 games (33 starts). De Paul finished the 2019-20 season with seven goals and six assists, with that goal tally easily getting the better of any Juventus player this season.

Considering the season he just had and what his age is, Udinese might be in the best position to profit off of De Paul’s development this summer. The problem is, as we know, the financial capabilities of clubs that would certainly try and sign him might not be there due to the pandemic.

And hey, Juventus already has one Rodrigo who plays in the midfield. Adding another one, specifically this one, could very well be a solid addition.