OFFICIALLY OFFICIAL: Nicolo Rovella joins Monza on season-long loan

As one deep-lying midfielder arrives, another deep-lying midfielder who is eight years his junior heads out for another season with a potential relegation battler.

Juventus announced Wednesday that Nicolo Rovella has joined Serie A newbies Monza on a season-long loan deal. It’s not necessarily a surprising move seeing as Rovella’s loan move to Monza had been talked about for weeks, but the only thing holding it all up was Juve’s extended negotiations with Paris Saint-Germain for Leandro Paredes. Once Juventus looked like they were going to close things with PSG, that’s when Rovella headed over to Monza for his medicals early Wednesday and finalized his own deal.

Unlike when fellow young Juve midfielder Filippo Ranocchia joined Monza earlier this summer, Rovella’s loan move does not include an option to buy, signaling that Juve do have intentions to bring him back to Turin next summer.

Rovella, who spent the previous season and a half on loan with Genoa after Juventus bought him in January of 2021. Rovella’s time at Genoa was marked by solid play but also injury, as he returned to Juventus this summer with a somewhat unknown future as the Bianconeri’s midfield underwent a remaking with the arrival of Paul Pogba and now Paredes. The emergence of Fabio Miretti at the end of the 2021-22 season and another Nico, Nicolo Fagioli, returning from his own loan spell made things crowded to say the least.

Rovella was sometimes looked at as a potential bargaining chip to bring somebody in. At times it looked like he might stay at Juventus this season. But as the last few weeks went on, it seemed pretty determined that a loan move for the 2022-23 season was the road he was going down.

Before heading out on loan, Rovella appeared in all of Juventus’ first three games of the new season. In those three games off the bench, he flashed the obvious talent he does have as a deep-lying midfielder and what may be in store for him in the future.

That immediate future will be at Monza, not Juventus, though. It won’t be long before Juve sees Rovella again: The two teams play each other on Sept. 18 at the Stadio Brianteo.