Diego in, Salvio and Domínguez out?

Atleti reportedly still look to hang on to the Brazilian, but only if major sales are made

Posted by on June 26th, 2012 in Rumours -

ATLETICO MADRID MIDFIELDER DIEGO RIBAS

There's still a small chance Diego will stay at Atlético
(MARCA)

Is he in or is he out?

That’s the question Atlético supporters have been posing since the final whistle blew at the end of the season with regard to unanimous fan favourite and playmaker Diego.

With the midfielder’s one-year loan from Wolfsburg having expired, his future has been the subject of rampant speculation throughout the off-season.

The former Juventus man’s rumoured destination alternates – on a weekly (and sometimes daily) basis – between a return to Wolfsburg and an extended stay in Madrid.

German paper Bild reported on Monday that Diego would be re-joining Die Wölfe at the beginning of next week for training, with the Brazilian supposedly having phoned Felix Magath to inform the coach he is “open to everything”.

Magath told the sports daily that Diego would be taking part in friendlies with the club during the pre-season, while Bild claim the 27-year-old is almost certain to be off-loaded–though Atleti were not mentioned as a possible landing-place for the footballer.

Meanwhile, AS reports early Tuesday that Rojiblanco sporting director José Luis Pérez Caminero is still contemplating the possibility of retaining the leader in assists of our Europa League-winning campaign, but only if Eduardo Salvio is sold to help cover Wolfsburg’s €12 million asking price for Diego.

Porto, Benfica and Fiorentina are rumoured suitors for the Argentine attacker’s services.

But Atleti’s current priority, according to the Spanish paper, is to cash in on our more marketable merchandise in Raúl García, Rúben Micael, Álvaro Domínguez and Diego Costa, who will all apparently be leaving the club for good this summer.

Defender Domínguez will reportedly be the first to depart, with a deal with Bundesliga outfit Borussia Mönchengladbach – who have purportedly offered €8 million for the Atleti youth product – said to be in the works.

Los Rojiblancos apparently want €10 million for the young centre-back, but a final sale price could be agreed upon within the coming days.

One would think this would mean Diego Godín will be suiting up in red and white for another term, however, AS claim Atlético would be willing to part ways with the Uruguayan if a juicy offer for the defender comes our way.


  • Arjit

    Nooooooo! not dominguez! everybody else is fine, let godin go instead!

  • Arjit

    and offload mario suarez too! on the other hand, keeping diego would be amazing.

  • shlomgar

    Oh god, what an imbecile decision, letting Alvaro go so easily…
    The others have to go… Even Salvio, yes, I’ve said it before, you know my thoughts on this.
    And I’m sorry but Alvaro’s leaving is Cholo’s fault, for not trusting on him… OK no, I’m taking it back, Cholo is god, he can’t make mistakes. It whould create a freaking Dogma or something, all of our lives will end…
    It would be nice to hear his thoughts on recent Transactions in the club. He wouldn’t say anything new of course, but it will be assuring to know he is behind all these new signings.

  • Shay

    Damn.. I like Salvio and Alvaro.. I think we can do without them but only for DIEGO!!!

    And yes.. Cholo. God.

  • Urban

    DIEGGGGGGGOOOOOOOOO DIEEEEEEEEEEEGGGGGOOOOOOOOO!

    Sell Godin and keep Dominguez, although its because he is a canterano, skillswise Godin is better.

    This rumour made my day!

  • Yon

    Diegoooooooooooooooo <3

  • Dircil

    sell out all of the useless sons of bitches: micael, godin, tiago and etc to keep Dominguez, diego and other wonderful players. Holy mother of crap, that news brings me both shock and hope

  • Scott Lind

    KEEPER DOMINGUEZ, SELL GODIN!!!!!!

  • Evan C

    Keep Dominguez sell either Godin or Miranda, Keeping Diego is a Must! If we do sign Diego though i hope the transfer window shuts straight away because teams will be after almost every player we have and we wont bring anyone in.

  • Shay

    Common!!! Bring Diego in before JAVY LOYOZA will start writing 70 posts in a row with boring links and players hahaha

  • shlomgar

    Evan C@ Didn’t understand quite what you ment about transfer window, but some of our players, even good ones like R.Garcia and Salvio have to go, in order to keep quite atmosphere. Miranda though is one of Cholo’s Rocks like Gabi Falcao and Juanfran and shouldn’t be sold.

  • starvs

    Unfortunately I think this is just going to lead to a lot of heartbreak and disappointment, but I hope im wrong.

  • ali_

    shlomgar: yes it is cholo’s fault. he talked about how important is the cantera and here it is… selling one of the best of them. domi can be the next regular spanish NT player from atletico, and looks like we gonna sell him. fuckin great. oh yeah and we gonna sell him for much cheaper, we wont get 15 mil for him, 11 is the top i think. godín wont be better, and alvaro already proved himself but yeah sell alvaro. idiotic and very dissapointing decision from the club. i would bitchslap every people who decided that way, and yes, even cholo.

  • Yon

    Love how it you blame Cholo above, for all we know he has had no say in this?

  • shlomgar

    Looks like we’re gonna face A.Lopez next year. I wish him the best in Mallorca. He is a legend for ever!

  • palc

    Those international caps brought immediate attention to Dominguez. Although he was linked to Bayern Munich a couple of years ago.

    €8 million is somewhat cheap for Dominguez, but he might be overrated for some of you. I value him between €10-12 million. He is just an OK defender and nothing more to be honest.. He’s 23 and I don’tthink he will be much better than he is atm. If we bring in Botia for half the money, then we would be doing very good business. Noone seems to want that disaster Godin, which is fully understandable. So we have to sell a player who actually has value. I understand the boards decision.

    Don’t get me wrong, I’d love Dominguez to stay with him being a cantero and all. But in order to balance our books, we have to sacrifice. Football is business.

  • ali_

    its not about balancing books anymore… they want to keep falcao (and now seems want to get diego) and want to pay the debts. so they sacrifice a lot of players, just to keep 1 or 2 players. fantastic idea.
    at this cost i would sell falcao instead.

  • palc

    Falcao is much needed. Dominguez is not. Dominguez actually has some value right now due to the international attention, not sure if he would have the same value next year. Falcao is worth at least €40 mill now, next year, in two years etc. Untill we sell him, which inevitably will happen. Upon selling him, we would have enough money to build a strong squad, with Torres returning amongst others.

    So keep in mind that we have a player walking around with a €40 million pricetag.

  • Mahmoud

    Why are we selling Diego Costa? Do the board expect Falcao and Adrian to play pretty much every game next season without getting injured or exhausted?

  • shay

    Palc@: This site should hire you for being the one reasonable man. Alvaro is good but bot that good

  • Jose Ignacio Perez-Laorga

    I don’t know what this club is doing anymore.. buying useless old centre backs, and selling National Team material, like dominguez.. Yes Diego would be great, but we shouldnt touch people from the house,.. Tiago, Godin, miranda, all older and forn. And we seel dominguez first??? we are retarded

  • Ringo

    Salvio should stay, and I personally think Dominguez should stay, too. There is a future to take in consideration and they could be part of a great team.
    They are young and show ability to grow. Dominguez too, palc. Plus, Salvio could be second choice on three or four positions. Dominguez on two or even a starter. I’d sell Godin and put hopes in Dominguez, Pulido and Diaz for LCB, with Miranda covering RCB.
    Juanfran, Miranda, Filipe, Gabi (although I’m not his biggest fan), Arda and Adrian are already part of a great core. I’d name Falcao too, but if the results don’t improve A LOT, he will leave after a year or so…
    Salvio could grow into part of that core, I think Dominguez too. I see Diego as someone who won’t stay longer than two years, ESPECIALLY if he does well. I could be wrong, but if he does great (and the team does not) he wants to move bigger before he’s too old. That’s why I prefer Salvio to him. Grow the whole team, don’t let it hang on one or two starplayers…

    So, the core needs a midfielder, hopefully Koke could finally grow in that role, but with Emre, etc that won’t happen this year. Loan him to a club where he’s certainly first pick as central or even defensive midfielder. A club like Getafe, Celta or Deportivo, perhaps? Use Emre and try other canteranos this year and if Koke does great, he could be a first pick next year. Like a Gabi story in higher acceleration and more room to improve.
    Juanfran/Silvio/Kader – Miranda – Dominguez/Pulido – Filipe;
    Koke – Gabi/buy when older/canterano;
    Salvio – Adrian – Arda;
    Falcao?/Canterano

    If this team plays together a lot, all of them will improve, plus they will be used to eachother. With the right coach and atmosphere, I’d love it. If there’s structure in this (and a goalkeeper to coach ’em), there is more room for canteranos to get selected, etc.

    PS. Sad that Borja didn’t have the necessary ‘luck’ to live up to his potential (so far) 🙁 Could have taken away the 2nd/3rd striker discussion for next season, at the least.

  • Sell “CLUMSY” Godin instead and keep dominguez and instead of salvio why not send mario suarez and perhaps Raul Garcia or Ruben Micael. also sell ruben perez and keep tiago

  • palc

    Problem is that no one wants to buy Godin. No wonder as tihs clumsy fool has scored three own goals in hist last ten matches. If we sell this fool, then many of our problems will be solved. Damn fool.

    By the way Napoli seems to be willing to buy Miranda for € 10 million. Miranda is better than Dominguez, but it might come as a surprise for you that I would rather keep Dominguez.

    Also read somewhere that Dominguez is the one pushing for a move away. He has been given limited playing time by Cholo which is unfortunate as he has ambitions of playing in Brazil 2014. Sounds reasonable and I think this might be true.

  • 20corona

    What did QSF, Manzano and Simeone have in common?

    They all put Dominguez on the bench!
    I don’t know why but if they all did it then it must be something wrong with him.

  • Davide

    I do not care who goes, Godín or Dominguez. The only central defenders who is untouchable is Miranda, he is stable, turns in good games on a regular basis and Cholo trusts him, that is enough for me. Diaz and Miranda, that is one hard ass take no prisoners defence. Botia can play for a place. Salvio should go unless Cholo starts using him in his best position, through the middle as a forward/second striker. Salvio has great finishing but is to often stuck on the wings. Right now Domingues is not good enough to take Atlético to step two of the rebuilding great team process. We can let him go to Germany and build some experience and get som German defensive dicipline. Then we bring him back in 4 years when he is 27 and has become a brutal Bündesliga centre back. Right now we need other type of players and characters for the team to grow.

  • http://soccernet.espn.go.com/news/story/_/id/1116175/mallorca-sign-former-atletico-madrid-captain-antonio-lopez?cc=3888

    now that was a player such a great legend. he and perea would be remember greatly by Atletico people.

  • Urban

    Domi goes to Germany ;((((

  • shlomgar

    F**k it. No more Alvaro. How much did we get for him?