Fabio Paratici reveals it was “simple” to sign Cristiano Ronaldo because he only wanted to sign for Juventus.
The Juventus sporting director explained that the €100m deal to bring the Portuguese star to Turin was far more straight forward because of the players willingness to join.
“With Cristiano it was quite simple because he already had it in his head to come to Juventus.” Paratici told Sky.
“There was no real need to convince him. I think around May 25, after the Champions League final he decided. He said: ‘if there’s Juve, then I only want Juve’.
“When we met with Mendes to talk about Joao Cancelo he told me: ‘you won’t believe this, but Cristiano wants to come to Juventus’.
“I replied: ’it’s not that I don’t believe it, but it seems difficult to make everything fit’.
“President Agnelli is very present in our daily lives, because he’s always with us or at least reachable, so we can easily meet.
“We plan for days, but this wasn’t planned. I said to him: ‘there could be an opportunity, but it’s important you listen to me until the end’.
“When you turn up to his office and tell him you need to buy Cristiano Ronaldo… it was good sporting news, but then there’s the other part. He understood immediately though, and I realised he was already thinking along those lines.
“When I left his office I thought we could get there. Agnelli said ‘give me a day or two to think about it’, but he called me after three hours.
“To draw up all the contracts we rented a villa on Lake Maggiore for a whole day, with all the representatives of Juventus and the player.
Paratici then turned his attention to recently departed director Beppe Marotta who joined Inter Milan last month.
“I think we were very well matched, complementary. I’d deal with the purely technical side of things, the scouting, the relationship with the agents, identifying the players.
“Then there was a meeting with him, he’s a very knowledgeable person who knows football and knows the numbers really well, so he’d tell you how far you could go in a negotiation.
“The best thing is that we were so well matched. I carried things until the final stage, then he intervened with his experience and helped me make as few mistakes as possible.
“I think the toughest negotiation, overall, was the one for Tevez. He’s a player we contacted at the end of our first year at Juventus, when we hadn’t had a good season.
“We had to relaunch Juve and we contacted Tevez all the same, even though we hadn’t qualified for the Champions League. It’s hard to get the great players when you’re not in the Champions League.
“He said immediately though: ‘Yes, even if we are not in the Champions League, I will come to Juve’.
“The deal didn’t get done for other reasons, financial and so on, but we stayed in touch because it was always my objective to bring Tevez to Juventus.
“Conte and Allegri? The transfer market with Conte was down to a player’s functionality with respect to what he wanted him to do.
“That’s a legitimate thing, indeed it makes the job of those who are looking for players easier.
“Conte had a style of play and, quite rightly, we had to find players who suited a system.
“Allegri, in that sense, is more flexible. He doesn’t have one system, he’s more open and has more solutions. So the transfer targets are expanded a bit more.
“Champions League? It’s our ambition, but not an obsession.”
[Translation from Football Italia]
