The phone lines between Milan and Belgium have been hot in previous summers, and they are heating up once again.
As La Gazzetta dello Sport (seen below) recall, in 2022 AC Milan were embroiled in negotiations with Club Brugge over Charles De Ketelaere, whom they eventually landed. A year ago, the club looked in the same direction, eventually breaking Brugge’s resistance to add Ardon Jashari to their midfield.
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This time, their sights are set not on West Flanders but on the east, more specifically Genk. It is the city and club of Konstantinos Karetsas, the Pro League and Greek national team’s golden 18-year-old talent. Born in Belgium to Greek parents, he is the number 10 that Milan want.
Karetsas is left-footed but loves cutting in from the right. Despite his young age, he has 92 appearances for Genk with six goals and 23 assists, plus 10 appearances and three goals for Greece.
Milan’s strategy
It is clear why this is one of the next transfer objectives for Milan: Gerry Cardinale has invested certain money in Goncalo Ramos and Mario Gila, but the preferred corporate strategy remains that of focusing on talent and developing it.
Karetsas has been admired a lot and for a long time, for his characteristics and great potential. He would add imagination, unpredictability and enthusiasm in a department that today has older interpreters, such as Christian Pulisic, Christopher Nkunku and Samuel Chukwueze.
However, after having spent over €100m on the first two signings, Cardinale and Milan are in no hurry to buy again. They would like to study the best way to get an agreement with Genk and do it before Borussia Dortmund, who are also after Karetsas.
With fierce competitors the price risks rising further. Borussia – as per reports in Germany – are ready to raise the first offer of €30m, rejected by the Belgian side. Milan are still in contacts and could relaunch again once the accounts are replenished.
Raising cash
There could be an overtaking at the final corner if Milan managed to sell Rafael Leao in a short time. An auction could also be unleashed for Rafa too, as the proposal put forward by Fenerbahçe is destined to be met by that of Galatasaray.
The Istanbul derby cannot help but enthuse the Rossoneri, while Leao’s mood remains colder (but he can always warm up quickly) when thinking about the idea of moving to Turkey. His recent comments on a podcast in Brazil have further confused things, too.
With the €60m from the hypothetical sale of Leao, the Rossoneri would go straight to Genk with the cash needed for Karetsas. The club, and Amorim, have a special respect for Konstantinos and believe he is worth the €35-40m asked for.
However, Genk’s negotiating leverage has grown with the renewal of Karetsas, now tied to the club until 2029. Yesterday the contract renewals of Francesco Camarda and Christian Comotto was made official until 2031 – could they soon be joined by another 18-year-old ‘wonderkid’?
The guy that Arsenal signed is twice the player. Why wasn’t Milan going for him?
Because he’s a winger.
Who, Tzolis? Arsenal is Tzolis 6th team since 2020, he is 6 years older than Karetsas and most importantly Tzolis is a left winger while Karetsas is a right winger, a position of need at Milan.
Karetsas is an AMC as well, if he were just a winger, he wouldn’t be our target.
Pulisic is also a winger, Chukwueze is also a winger. Why are they at the club? “He is also an AMC” means nothing. Pulisic is also an AMC if you play him there. You never watched Tzolis play, right? Not even a single game. How do you know? You googled it?
Pulisic is not just a winger, he can obviously play as an attacking midfielder and a second striker. He operates pretty well in the centre of the field as well just like he does on the flank, it’s not just that he is forced to play there (due to various reasons) during the season and underperforms because he is out of his natural position. That means everything when you think about it but you are completely brainless so it doesn’t make any difference to you whatsoever, naturally.
P.S. Minus “as well” in this sentence, I should have left that out…
And Tzolis can’t? As I’ve said, you’re commenting without watching the player.
Not according to TM. He is a right-footed player, that’s the second reason why we didn’t go after the guy. The third reason is the fee, we wouldn’t have stood a chance in a (potential) bidding war but you don’t care about any of that apparently.
And Kostic is probably better than this guy. Not the same type of player but better.
How do you know that? Have you ever watched Andrej, honestly? When did you have to chance to see him play and was it on TV or on Youtube?
Yes, I’ve watched him while he played for Podgorica. He didn’t get that many minutes but whenever he played he showed why he ended up at Milan only 2 years after that.
Actually, he has ended up at Milan one year after Buducnost since he was at Partizan for just one season (year) but OK, maybe you’ve watched him two years ago. GOOD FOR YOU,
by the way. Zasto se onda stidis svog porekla, zasto ti smeta kad se ovde pise na srpskom i hrvatskom jeziku?
Yes, Arsenal signed him because he is bad and can’t settle himself. Milan meanwhile signs only top players. Why wasn’t anyone going for Jashari but some bottom table English club? You’ll see why this season, if the last one wasn’t enough. You seem to think that you know better than people that do transfers at Arsenal? 😀 Who cares if someone is 18 or 24? The point is you are buying a player that has to be a first team player, if he is 40M€. Age is irrelevant.
The fact is that he cant settle himself because he is on a different team every year.
No one said that he is a bad player and arsenal signing him doesn’t prove that he is a good player since arsenal paid Chelsea over 50 mil for madueke who is trash. They also picked up another Chelsea trash Sterling a year or 2 ago.
Milan would be buying Karetsas to be a starter in a position of need which is a left footed right winger. Tzolis plays on the left when Milan alright have Pulisic, Nkunku and most likely Leao since no one wants him.
And Cisse.
Ok, I see who I deal with here. You’re probably from Argentina, you have that stench about you.
Another 1982 incoming & all over again, OMG…
“After having spent over €100m on the first two signings, Cardinale and Milan are in no hurry to buy again.”
Are you kidding? We need 3 or (rather) 4 more high-quality signings for the starting XI (CB, MC,
LWB and AMRC) only at least 1 or 2 new names for depth. Granted, we are not in a panic mode just yet because there is still time to buy (them)
but we really shouldn’t wait much longer either.
But it makes sense we have to sort sales out first. We can’t take any of those predictions as a guarantee and our players won’t be other teams’ first choices in a lot of cases, so we may have to wait for dominos to fall elsewhere first.
Well, as much as what you’ve stated is true and correct, we must bring a proper LWB and AMRC regardless of the sales, the rest is up for debate and (should be) dependent on the departures…
If we don’t sell Leao and Chukwueze, they are the two backup AMRCs, RLC and Cissé next in line.
We still have two LBs at the moment too.
Are those perfect, no, but it’s up to Amorim to fashion something with them unless they go.
Leao will be sold for sure, there’s no doubt about it in my opinion, nobody there wants
him to stay at Milan anymore.
From what I’ve read, we don’t have the money for a transfer right now, and who knows when we will have it, and Dortmund are close to agreeing on a price for him, and he wants to play in Germany ! I don’t know what else is unclear?!
I hope Dortmund get him. You can’t trust short players. He’s no Messi.
Bro….you have 40 yr old Modric in your team. R u rtarded?
What a blunt comment.
we better rely on comotto
Comotto is a MC, they don’t play (in) the same position.
This is a bad deal and Milan will regret it. This guy is not ready for Serie A pressure !!!
Milan waited 2 years for Leao, a year for Tonali. He can get ready with time just like everyone else
Clearly people here haven’t watched the guy. There’s a reason almost every scouting source rates this guy as a top ten if not top five u21 player in terms of Potential. The key thing is he also plays with confidence in his games like he knows he’s that guy. Thats the kind of quality that would help in Translate to Italy. And even if he doesn’t translate instantly so what. We’ve seen how out our price range top players are going for now. If we want those top players we are gonna have to take gambles on them when they are younger
It’s transition(ing) / accommodate / acclimatize
what you meant to say (not translate), isn’t it?
Yes. When u have players that play with a mindset of , I’m gonna take control of this game, that tends to help people translate
How did those sources rate Jashari?
Nowhere near as high as him. Besides Jashari almost missed half the season from injury. The coach never wanted him in the first place. So it’s too early to judge. Besides who’s the better fit
Players from jupiler pro league is always a gamble (as we have seen previously), but this guy is highly rated by lots of scouting departments, so he clearly got something.
Since Milan cant pay as much as premier league clubs or other top clubs in Spain (Barca, the madrid clubs), France (psg) and Germany (Bayern), we gotta find young promising players that arent on the top clubs radar as well, like Diawara who we just snatched from Troyes.
Karetsas is the right profile: left footed attacking midfielder, so I think hes worth the gamble.
If Amorim think hes the right fit I think its great that the management focus on getting the players he asks for, not the players they think is right (Like Zlatan, Moncada and Furlani did).
37 comments about a player we can’t even buy yet. People are worked up! The true test is to see what Gerry does if Leao can not be offloaded. Then we’ll see if he’s really interested in “whatever-it-takes” approach to improve the sporting side …