OFFICIALLY OFFICIAL: Hellas Verona sign Gianluca Frabotta on loan

As we start to head into the final weeks of the summer transfer window and players begin to come back from their post-international duty holidays, the fringe players on Juventus’ squad are going to start to be paired down and shipped out.

One of those moves has gone down.

Juventus announced Friday night that Gianluca Frabotta has joined Hellas Verona on loan for the 2021-22 season. While not officially mentioned in Juve’s announcement of the deal, Hellas Verona is believed to have an option to buy Frabotta, with that option becoming an obligation if certain sporting achievements are met. (Translation: If Frabotta plays enough for Hellas next season, then he will likely remain in Verona.)

Signing with Hellas Verona ends what has been a wild couple of weeks in terms of where Frabotta might have landed on loan this coming season. First it looked like Genoa would be the place where he would play. Then it was Atalanta. But once Atalanta decided to go in a different direction and sign a different young Italian left-back, Genoa came back into the picture. But, all of the sudden, there was also Hellas Verona. And now we know where he will be playing after weeks of rumors about multiple Serie A sides being interested.

Frabotta, 22, was one of the early surprises last season for the simple fact that we didn’t expect him to play as much as he did the first two months of the season under Andrea Pirlo. That playing time, however, didn’t last once Alex Sandro came back from injury, and Frabotta’s spot on the bench only came more and more regular when the stretch run of the 2020-21 season arrived.

Another part of this move is the fact that Juventus’ other young Italian left-back on the roster, Luca Pellegrini, looks more and more like the pick to be the backup to Sandro now that Frabotta has headed out on loan. Pellegrini, who himself has spent the last two years away from Turin, still hasn’t made an official appearance with Juventus since they signed him in the now quite infamous deal involving Leonardo Spinazzola.