AC Milan made Goncalo Ramos their club-record signing on Tuesday, and the reasons for doing so have emerged.
As La Gazzetta dello Sport write this morning, there are worse places to change your life than Palm Beach. Ramos is currently in Florida with the Portuguese national team, and tomorrow he’ll be in Toronto for the round of 16 match against Croatia.
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Milan announced yesterday that he – Gonçalo Ramos from Olhão, on the southern coast of Portugal – is Amorim’s new striker. Ramos has made the decision to join Milan in Palm Beach, a spectacular setting on the Atlantic coast where, curiously, the Portugal training camp and RedBird are located.
Gonçalo and Gerry Cardinale will meet again in Italy, and the question now is who will be with them in the dressing room when Milan plays their first match. Cardinale and Zlatan Ibrahimovic have a Dutch dream called Virgil van Dijk, but that’s another story.
Why Ramos?
Now that the deal with PSG is officially closed – and for a fee not far from €70m – we can reconstruct how it went. Cardinale, after turning the page with the dismissal of Giorgio Furlani, Igli Tare, Geoffrey Moncada and Massimiliano Allegri, decided to take charge of the situation.
The club’s priority has always been the No.9, and one arrived much sooner than expected. Ramos wasn’t Amorim’s only preference, and he’s not one to force a name (Nicolas Jackson, for example, was considered) but Gonçalo was always the first choice.
Milan quoted Ramos in their press release: “Before a Europa League match, Rui Costa called me and said: ‘Gonçalinho, whatever happens, go out on the pitch and act as if you were playing in the street with your friends.’ I still carry this advice with me: it took the pressure off me.”
Ramos signed a deal until 2031, when he will have just turned 30. PSG also wrote: “Paris Saint-Germain thanks Gonçalo Ramos for his professionalism, commitment, and contribution to the club’s numerous successes.”
This isn’t a stretch: application is one of the Portuguese’s best features. Indeed, the former Benfica man also appears in Milan’s press release as the number nine, which means that he is almost certain to inherit the number from Niclas Füllkrug.
He will arrive in Italy in late July, perhaps August. It will depend on Portugal’s run, because a couple of weeks’ vacation is the bare minimum for everyone. The key, if anything, will be whether Roberto Martinez will give him some playing time or if he will keep him on the bench as he has so far.
This has a higher chance of falling flat on its face than succeeding simply based on the exorbitant amount being spent on perceived quality.