Report: Juventus working to extend Samuel Iling-Junior’s contract

Mainly based on what he did during his second-half substitute appearance against Benfica on Tuesday night, 19-year-old Samuel Iling-Junior is very much a name on the tip of Juventus supporters’ tongue right now. And because of such developments, it’s hard to think about what’s next for the young Englishman who joined Juventus from Chelsea.

On the field, it’s still a TBD situation.

Off the field, it’s what a lot of folks are suddenly wondering about — his next contract.

According to Goal Italia’s Romeo Agresti on Wednesday, Juventus and Iling-Junior’s representation have been talking about a new contract for the teenaged attacker. While no length of what a new contract would look like has been mentioned, there very much seems to be confidence surrounding the whole situation regarding Iling-Junior, who currently has a contract that is set to expire this coming summer.

Or, as Agresti put it with further reporting on Thursday, “agreement is in the air.”

Iling-Junior, who made his senior squad debut with Juventus in last Friday night’s win over Empoli, has made quite a name for himself since getting the call up to the Juve Under-23 team this year. One of the youngest players on the Next Gen roster, Iling-Junior has also received a handful of appearances on Juve’s matchday squad due to injuries in attack, with the past week being quite the experience for the former Chelsea youth product.

But with his big showing off the bench against Benfica, he’s shot up the ranks in terms of youth team players you definitely want to see more of this season and into the future.

Tying Iling-Junior down to a long-term contract would go along the lines of what Juventus has tried to do more and more of in recent years as the likes of Fabio Miretti, Nicolo Fagioli and Matias Soulé have come through the academy and broke into the senior squad. All three of those players are signed through 2026, which would likely be the same kind of deal they’d hand over to Iling-Junior so that he can keep developing close to home base.

And if Iling-Junior — who arrived from Chelsea in the summer of 2020 after turning down the likes of Paris Saint-Germain and Borussia Dortmund, according to Agresti — is the next one to follow in those youngsters’ footsteps, then it’s a feather in the cap of a management team that could use a few wins these days.