Reports: Juve to sign McKennie; Bernardeschi, Khedira subject of swap rumors

The first transfer deal of the Andrea Pirlo era may be upon us.

According to multiple reports in Italy, including Fabrizio Romano and Gianluca Di Marzio, Juventus are close to signing American midfielder Weston McKennie from Schalke. The midfielder, who will turn 22 on Friday, would arrive in Turin on an initial €3 million loan deal with an option to buy next summer for €18 million.

McKennie arrived at Schalke at the age of 17 and was on the Bundesliga outfit’s first team by the next year. He’s played 91 times, scoring five goals and adding seven assists. He’s also earned 19 caps for the USMNT. He would be the first American man to play for Juventus, and the second American overall after Ashley Nick played for the women’s team in 2018-19.

Signing McKennie is a low-risk, high-reward move that could end up representing a big upgrade in midfield. I’ve sometimes referred to Rodrigo Bentancur as Gennaro Gattuso with ball skills. A similar comparison can be made to McKennie, except substitute Blaise Matuidi for Gattuso. McKennie isn’t the greatest creative passer, but he’s a very strong defender with a never-ending motor and great instincts off the ball. And while he’s certainly no regista he’s not hopeless with the ball either. He’s a good dribbler who can surge through space much the way Adrien Rabiot started doing as his form started to get better after the restart. He’s also an outstanding leaper, having won 2.3 aerial duels per match in the Bundesliga last year and 58 percent of the total aerials he was involved in.

He’d be unlikely to play a huge role at the beginning of the season with the likes of Bentancur, Rabiot, and Arthur on the team, but in the best-case scenario he evolves into a high-level box-to-box midfielder for a total cost roughly equivalent to what Juventus paid for Arturo Vidal in 2011. Indeed, this is the kind of low- to mid-cost move with the potential of really high upside that Juve have tended to eschew the last few years in favor of bigger, flashier signings, save perhaps for the signing of Merih Demiral last summer. He could also end up as Mario Lemina 2.0, but at this cost it would probably be worth finding out which he could be. It’s also worth noting that if he does find success in a Juve shirt, it would be a major entry point into the American commercial market for the club.

Other transfer rumors involving the midfield have cropped up as well, this one centered around Federico Bernardeschi. According to a report by Tuttosport, the winger could be involved in a swap deal with Atletico Madrid, with midfielder Thomas Partey being the other part of the exchange.

According to the report, Bernardeschi left an impression on Diego Simeone in the second leg of the 2018-19 Champions League round of 16. It’s not hard to see why—the 26-year-old played what was probably the game of his life that night, assisting on the first of Juve’s three goals, earning the decisive penalty late on, and generally acting as the attacking terror everyone thought Juventus was buying when he was first bought from Fiorentina three years ago. It’s likely that Berna could use a change of scenery, and Partey would certainly be a major upgrade in the midfield. With him, McKennie, and perhaps Manuel Locatelli in the fold, the season’s midfield signings could be complete.

Partey isn’t the only swap move Bernardeschi has been reportedly involved in. According to Sportmediaset (h/t Juvefc.com), Juventus are also considering using him to address their striker situation, using him and perhaps another player from the Under-23 team to acquire Arkadiusz Milik. According to that report Bernardeschi has been convinced of the move and Juve are looking to finalize the deal, although the details on how it would be sealed are rather scant.

Our final rumor of the day comes from Corriere dello Sport, which puts forward another potential swap deal for a striker, using Sami Khedira to drop the price of Roma’s Edin Dzeko.

While our friends at Chiesa di Totti would probably end up burning new owner Daniel Friedkin in effigy over such a move, it would remove a massive headache at Continassa, as Khedira is currently refusing to allow his contract to be terminated and insisting on his salary for the final year of his contract. If he were to accept a swap as a part exchange in a deal such as this, it would remove a dead weight from Juve’s roster and give Ronaldo a prima punta to play with in the middle—although the impact of such a move would be very short-term, as at 34 Dzeko probably doesn’t have all that much top-level football left in him.