OFFICIALLY OFFICIAL: Radu Dragusin joins Sampdoria on loan

Because mostly of circumstances last season, Radu Dragusin did as much bouncing between Juventus’ senior team and Under-23 squad as much as anybody at the club. It didn’t necessarily result in a lot of playing time under Andrea Pirlo, but it definitely gave him a glimpse of what is to come in his still-very young career.

Now, the hope is that a little more playing time follows.

Juventus announced Tuesday that the very large but still somehow 19-year-old Dragusin has joined Sampdoria on loan for the 2021-22 season. It is a dry loan — something that Dragusin’s agent was very much seeking so that the teenager could return to Juventus next summer — and that should give you an idea that the young Romanian could very well fit into Juve’s plans for the future rather than become the latest Under-23 team player meant to bring in a little bit of a profit on the transfer market.

He joins another 19-year-old from Juventus at Sampdoria: Mohamed Ihattaren, who Juve signed earlier in the day Tuesday and immediately loaned out to the Blucerchiati.

Dragusin joined Juventus in the summer of 2018. After working his way up the ladder of youth teams, Dragusin made his senior team debut in December 2020 in the Champions League as a second-half substitute. He then made his Serie A debut a couple of days later.

This summer has seen Dragusin linked with a handful of Serie A clubs as Juventus looked to get him a shot at regular playing time. There were a few weeks where he looked like he could be used as a bargaining chip in the negotiations with Sassuolo for Manuel Locatelli. Once it became clear that inserting a player to try and transfer fee for Locatelli wasn’t going to be all that possible, a season-long loan deal became Dragusin’s best option for anything close to regular minutes.

Dragusin was also heavily linked with a loan move to Cagliari over the last week or two.