Viola Keep Montolivo a Little Longer, Eye João Moutinho
By: Martha | October 18th, 2007
Having extended their hold on Giampoalo Pazzini through 2011 earlier this season, Fiorentina have now also successfully ensnared his fellow (future) superstar Riccardo Montolivo for the foreseeable future, as well. Already contracted through 2010, the boy who fell off of the Sistine Chapel ceiling is now tied to the Viola through the 2012 season, an ending point dictated by Serie A rules rather than how long he wants to stay. According to Montolivo, he wishes he could have signed through 2013, and plans to say with the club for ever and ever, despite the fact that he’s still earning about £700,000/year — it’s safe to assume that, if he career progresses the way everyone expects, that amount will be renegotiated in a year or two.
In addition to locking up their talented youngsters, Fiorentina are also always on the lookout for new talent they can get for reasonable prices and, to that end, may have their eye on Sporting Lisbon midfielder João Moutinho. Despite only being 21, Moutinho is a captain of his team — to which he’s signed through 2013 — and a regular in the Portuguese national team; understandably, he’s on the radar of a lot of European clubs and might turn out to be outside of the Viola’s price range, depending on who steps up and actually makes a bid.
The only problem with this news is that the Italian media are reporting that it comes from Record, a Portuguese sports paper. The article in Record, however, says the story comes from “the Italian press,” so it could very well be just a big media wankfest with no basis in fact whatsoever. It’s more fun to believe it, though, because another Portuguese in Serie A can only be a good thing.
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Comments
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Obviously it is great news to see Montolivo get a contract extension, especially because of his comments on his commitment to the club long-term.
Also the news about Moutinho is encouraging, he’s obviously a great prospect and the type of young international the Viola have been targeting. I wonder if Portugese players have a positive view of Fiorentina, due to the fact that Rui Costa and Nuno Gomes used to play there. I think this also signals that Prandelli is moving towards acquiring the players to swtich to the 4-2-3-1 formation.
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United States
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You missed the best Viola news of the day: Roma are eyeing up Adrian Mutu.
(They have a lot more money than most people think - they’re just don paying off their debts now)
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United States -
Right Chris, so are Barcelona, Man City and Real Madrid. He’s not getting sold this winter. The only way I could see him getting sold is this summer if Fiorentina don’t qualify for the Champions League.
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United States -
Yeah. like tmc says, the Mutu thing has been around since about week 1, the only thing that changes is what the new club is that’s in the hunt — I believe Inara said last week that Lyon were on the list, too.
After each new story, Mutu will talk about how much he loves Fiorentina (which I think he does, though that doesn’t mean he doesn’t want to go to Big Club), and he won’t go anywhere, at least for a while.
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United States -
Moutinho is very unlikely, for his career Fiorentina would not necessarily be better than Sporting, to whom he might have loyalties. And he will be very expensive, he is captain and a fan favorite and they got no obvious replacement for him.
The current portuguese player to Italy rumors are, yet again, Quaresma to Inter, to replace their portuguese #7 with his public nod of approval. Those rumors were around a lot in late August, and now again fuelled it seems by a Figo interview. Not sure if it will happen, Porto is in no need of money.
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BC, got a link to the new Figo interview? Is it the one he just did with O Jogo? The one over the summer that got everyone talking was a total mountain of a molehill situation, where he just said Quaresma was one of the most promising Portuguese players, and it got turned into a “FIGO SAYS QUARESMA SHOULD REPLACE HIM!” thing.
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I think I saw it in A Bola, but do not quote me on it and they do not publish their complete edition online . Looking at google news i can find this version with quotes,
http://www.maisfutebol.iol.pt/noticia.php?id=867435&div_id=1503
Figo says there is nothing serious agreed for Quaresma´s transfer, but any such tranfer «seria extremamente bom para o Inter, para o Ricardo e não tão bom para o F.C. Porto., que acabava por perder um excelente jogador» - it would be very good for Inter, very good for Ricardo but not so good for Porto who would loose an excellent player ; and asked if Quaresma could replace him at Inter «Seria um bom substituto» that is he would be a good replacement.
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Lyon have as much as chance of getting Mutu as Fiorentina have of getting Ben Arfa. It’s not going to happen in either direction.
I’m pretty sure a player like Mutu will try to go to a “big” club. Clubs like Roma, Lyon, Sevilla, etc, are not much of a step up from Fiorentina (though they might pay slightly better). If you’re going to leave a tier 2 club, you might as well take the next step up.
He’ll probably stay at Fiorentina until after Euro 2008.
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Oops, I meant, he’ll stay at Fiorentina until a year after Euro 2008, when the aged strikers at the top clubs start eying retirement.
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United States -
What are Barca going to do with yet another striker? (We’re still looking to offload two, if anyone’s interested.)
Martha, I thought you might like this: apparently Frank Rijkaard now prefers to sign married players rather than single ones, after what happened with Quaresma when he was at Barca. What exactly happened I’m not sure, but I guess we can all imagine. :D
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Thanks BC, it’s turned up in the Italian press now, but it’s EXACTLY the same as the stuff from the summer — they just seem to keep asking him the same thing, so they can write that article again and again. (Not that I wouldn’t be over the moon to have Quaresma at Inter.)
Linda, I have NO idea what happened with him at Barca, apart from injuries and ineffective play. I can’t find anything, but am now wildly curious.
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