Reports: Juventus, Samuel Iling-Junior agree to terms on contract extension

Ever since Samuel Iling-Junior burst onto the scene during Juventus ill-fated Champions League trip to Lisbon to face Benfica, the concentration on the young Englishman has centered around the status of his contract.

The finish line for those contract talks, thankfully, looks to have been reached.

According to reports over the weekend from Nicolo Schira and Goal Italia’s Romeo Agresti, Juventus and Iling-Junior have finalized the much-anticipated contract extension for the talented 19-year-old. We don’t know how long the new contract will run through, but you can probably guess that it will be a lot like the ones that Fabio Miretti and Nicolo Fagioli — two youngsters who are very much a part of Juve’s future just like Iling-Junior appears to be — signed through 2026 over the last few months.

One thing for sure is that we can assume that the kid is getting a nice little raise as well as probably some more senior team call-ups over the course of the second half of the 2022-23 season when games resume in January.

Iling-Junior, who has played the bulk of his minutes with the Juventus Next Gen (that’s still weird to type) squad, came to Turin two years ago and has very much shown to be one of the club’s best young players. Like Fagioli, Miretti and others before him, he is playing against grown ass men as a teenager in Serie C, and has gotten a handful of call-ups to the senior squad because of injuries. Just how often he might be called up after he officially signs this contract remains to be seen — who knows if there’s something worked into the deal about how often call-ups happen — but with a very busy January and February and injuries always one sprint of tackle away, he’s bound to get some kind of look.

I mean, I think a lot of us would be OK with Iling-Junior getting some sort of minutes the next time a Coppa Italia game rolls around. (Like, on Jan. 19 against Monza, perhaps?)

But the most important thing is that Iling-Junior isn’t going to be leaving on a free or anything like that the next year or two. Juventus is close to officially locking in another one of their best teenage prospects into a long-term deal that will hopefully see him break into the first team sooner rather than later.