Curated Cutback #4:

Hi everyone,

This is the first post I’m publishing via Beehiiv instead of Substack, as anticipated here, I hope you like how I’m working so far and you’ll bring new friends over time. The Substack will remain as it is for now, functioning as an archive, but all the new things will be sent from here. If you notice something doesn’t work properly don’t hesitate in letting me know.

I’m also trying in sending the curated version on Sundays now, because people probably have more time on Sunday to read. Again let me know if I’m wrong.

Thank you for your support, as always.

SVEN.

The most significant football news from last week would have to be the sad passing of Sven-Göran Eriksson. I don't think there's much more to add, at least not from my side. However, if you're interested in learning more about his life, I have two suggestions. If you have a translator for English and you enjoy long-form articles, L'Ultimo Uomo has done a meticulous job recounting his life, especially regarding clubs and the time in Italy. Alternatively, you could listen to a podcast in English that focuses more on his role with the Three Lions. It's up to you.

JU-VEN JU-VEN JU-VEN.

The TransferFlow has evaluated Juventus' latest two signings — Nico González and Francisco Conceição. This latest move is viewed in the context of the summer's work by the club's transfer team: in summary, the good news is that it's a new team with young players who have notable stats; the bad news is that a lot of money has already been spent this summer, and committed for the next one.

All of this has been written before the arrival of Koopmeiners, who, according to the folks at TTF, was overpaid — their valuation was around 40/45 million euros, vs the around 60 Juventus actually agreed on.

However, it doesn't seem like at TFF have taken into account that Juventus has also made significant moves with the outgoings, aiming to substantially reduce personnel costs (Rabiot, Alex Sandro, Szczęsny) and creatively manage the outflow of money for new acquisitions (Douglas Luiz, Nico). They also made sacrifices by letting young breakout players go (Soulé, Huijsen).

Here, as to be said, I am not considering the possibility that there might be a lot of undeclared spending on agents or that some of the incoming money might not actually end up in Juve's accounts for the same reason. Therefore, it's very complex to judge the figures at this moment.

Nevertheless, Juventus is in a better situation compared to 1, 2, 3, 4, or 5 years ago. Substantially because I doubt we'll see another major restructuring with 20 transfers between in and out in the near future, but there are still some issues. It's likely that some of the new players won't meet expectations, and the departures haven't brought in huge sums so far, with some surplus players still at Juventus (McKennie, Arthur, Kostić, Milik).

But in any case, Juventus, in the future is well positioned to have a better balance between higher revenues (thanks to a return to the Champions League and a revaluation of players' market value under the new coaching staff) and lower expenses in the upcoming sessions (fewer players bought and fewer salaries paid). This is also in light of the many commitments already made and the need to continue strengthening the squad with 1-2 players per summer session to compete at increasingly higher levels.

I'm waiting to see what will happen, but overall, I'm pretty optimistic about the future.

PROUD IN NOT BEING AJAX.

Feyenoord was quite busy maintaining a balance between player trading and not losing their place in the food chain of Dutch football.

Bijlow was set to join Southampton, but then he failed the medical tests. Santiago Gimenez and Hancko stayed despite strong interest from abroad, while Geertruida moved to Leipzig to replace Simakan (honestly, WTF Simakan? Why Arabia?), in the transfer window in the season you lost Arne Slot. I think it was a pretty good session for them, in the end they “only” lost Minteh - which they already knew was not going to stay - Wieffer and Geertruida.

They’ve not started the season well with 2 draws and 1 win against PEC Zwolle, Willem II and Sparta Rotterdam, not exactly the dutch teams that compete for European places. But the team is mostly the same so their fate is in their hands.

The part in which I’m even more interested for Feyenoord comes here, they took advantage of Juventus' overhaul to bring in Facundo Gonzalez. This move is both very interesting and very frustrating for me.

In my opinion, Facundo is just a player who needs some trust. In the pre-season match: Mainz - Juventus, he showed excellent qualities both in build-up and defense. He was one of the best — if not the best — defenders in the U20 World Cup, which he won with Uruguay in 2023 (again, in my humble opinion). On top of that, he's left-footed, which is a rare asset counting that around 33% of players are left-footed. I was pretty happy when Juventus bagged him, but then the music started, he was never considered and was pretty instantly sent to Serie B’s Juventus friend team Sampdoria, which was managed by Pirlo. It was an okay choice, Pirlo gave some trust to Dragusin and other young player when on Juventus bench and indeed Facundo played more then 2000 minutes.

But with Juventus’ total absence of a left-footed centerback in the team (apart from Cabal who is an hybrid full-back/centerback) I think he should have been part of the squad. At the very least Juventus still have retained a sell-on percentage and the option to match any offers for the player.

I will probably write about him once I have enough data from his time in the Eredivisie. In any case, Feyenoord has shown in recent years that they know how to operate well in the market, but more importantly, they know how to develop the players they invest in.

I'm looking forward to seeing what happens next for Facundo.

FIFA FIFAING.

The editorial team at Josimar has once again shown how FIFA only seems to like doing things transparently in words, while, in reality, money is the only thing they are interested in.

This attitude obviously has real impacts on football; it's no coincidence, in my opinion, that the inflation of salaries compared to revenue growth has favored the former. Football always seems to be managed in a very murky way, and it's not always clear where the money comes from. There’s a sentiment that some players in the market do actually hide something. The growth of salaries and fees for players should be regulated somehow, but it's very challenging to establish a global system to do this, as football does not operate within a closed system like the NFL, NBA, etc.

And FIFA seem interested in other things.

SIMU SALENTINI.

I don't know if you've ever noticed this, but in Serie A, there are only Lecce and Napoli from the south. Roma and Lazio are often considered central teams, and the islands are viewed separately or grouped with the south.

Overall, if we look at Serie A, B, and C in the 24/25 season, there are 31 teams from Abruzzo, Basilicata, Calabria, Campania, Molise, Puglia, Sardinia, and Sicily out of 100 teams, with these regions accounting for about 33.5% of Italy's population, which is okay. But in Serie A, we have only 3 teams from these regions out of a total of 20.

This disparity is due to many factors: historical, economical, social and so on.

That’s to say Lecce is the best run club in Italy, they have the tiniest budget - more similar to those of Serie B’s clubs than Serie A’s - they are owned by an association of local business men, and have recently decided to do some work on their stadium after building a new and owned training center. They’ve actually stayed up in Serie A for two years in a row and won trophies at youth level.

Huge respect.

See you soon!

The photo for the thumbnail was taken from the respective post, and I’m not currently monetizing from this newsletter, so I don’t want any problems.