8 August 2019, by: Zach Lowy

THE BEST BARGAINS IN THE EUROPEAN TRANSFER MARKET

Every year, transfer fees in football become more and more inflated. This isn’t just due to record-breaking transfers like Paul Pogba and Neymar, but for a variety of factors: greater TV packages, enhanced scouting, foreign takeovers, and in general, more opportunities for revenue growth. Whatever the case, there’s more money in football, and it’s becoming even more difficult to identify real bargains.

However, smart teams still find ways to snap up quality players for well below their market price. Here are the top four bargains of the summer transfer window.

Criteria: for the sake of keeping things interesting, we’re excluding free transfers from this list, given the fact that not every club has the financial pulling power to complete a signing-on fee or an agent commission fee for the likes of Aaron Ramsey and Héctor Herrera.

There’s plenty of logical explanations for why Nabil Fekir, at 26 years old, ended up joining Real Betis. For one, Seville is a lovely city with a similar climate to that of Lyon, the city where he grew up. Furthermore, Betis have recently developed a reputation for churning out (and replacing) elite playmakers: after Dani Ceballos left for Real Madrid in the summer of 2017, Quique Setién plucked Fabián Ruiz, a benchwarmer for an Elche team that were relegated to the Spanish third division, and made him into a top-notch midfielder who was soon plucked by Napoli.

They replaced him with Giovani Lo Celso, who, after arriving from Rosario Central a few months before, was wasted out of position by then-PSG manager Unai Emery. Lo Celso is now set to make a blockbuster move to Tottenham Hotspur. Perhaps Fekir saw the value in the Betis project and convinced himself he could make a move to Tottenham, Real Madrid or Napoli after succeeding in Andalusia.

Still, this doesn’t make this transfer any less weird. Fekir is a Champions League-caliber playmaker who signed with a team that just finished 10th in La Liga. For the first time in his professional career, he won’t be playing continental football this season.

Perhaps he just didn’t have the same hype as he did last season when he returned from a brilliant 2017/18 campaign with Lyon. After his transfer to Liverpool fell through due to worries over his knee injuries, he sulked and had a disappointing campaign for Les Gones. He put his transfer to Betis on standby because he wanted to wait for a bigger offer, but in the end, Betis got their man for a marked down price: €20 million + €10 million in potential bonuses.

He’ll have to adapt to Rubi’s 4-3-3 after playing in Bruno Génésio’s 4-2-3-1 over the last few years, but he has the talent to do so. A nimble magician with the trickery and quick feet to weave his way past rivals, with the vision and passing accuracy to set up teammates in goal-scoring positions, and with the finishing to make goalkeepers pay from long-range, Real Betis are getting a gifted technician for well below his market value.

BET: LA LIGA

To call Maximiliano Gómez González old-fashioned wouldn’t exactly be a stretch. When Valencia finally reached an agreement with Celta de Vigo for his transfer, the Uruguay international was unable to be reached; he was vacationing in the rural Paysandú region, cut off from technology or social media.

Pursued by the likes of Atlético Madrid and Barcelona, he nearly wound up at West Ham this summer. The Hammers offered to pay his £45 million release clause, but while the Galician club wanted his buyout clause to be paid in full, West Ham, who sent agent Will Salthouse to negotiate the deal rather than a club representative, offered an alternative payment structure.

Compounded with West Ham’s failure to trigger the clause and Gómez’s preference for Valencia instead of West Ham, Los Che ended up getting the Uruguayan striker for a bargain: £14.5 million plus Santi Mina, with Jorge Saénz joining Celta on loan for one season.

Despite West Ham offering a higher salary than Valencia, Gómez once again chose his sporting ambitions over money; in December 2017, he rejected a move to Beijing Guoan, preferring to stay at Balaídos instead.

In terms of how he’ll fit into Marcelino’s 4-4-2, Rodrigo Moreno has always benefitted from playing alongside a blistering target man who can win long balls, dominate central defenders, and create spaces (just look at his 2017/18 season playing behind Simone Zaza), and Gómez can do just that. He’s the perfect fit for Marcelino’s counter-attacking style, a clinical finisher who can drag defenders away and open up space for a second striker (Iago Aspas during his time at Celta) to feed into.

He’ll attempt to cement his reputation as one of the best young strikers in football, at a historic club that hasn’t had the best of luck with Uruguayan players (see Fabián Estoyanoff and Néstor Fabián Cannobio). Uruguay will be counting on him to reach his potential by 2022; Luis Suárez and Edinson Cavani will both be 35 by the time the next World Cup rolls around.

BET: LA LIGA

The story of Ávila’s rise to stardom is even more fascinating than seeing him on the pitch. The Argentine grew up in a poor, dangerous borough of Rosario called Empalme Graneros. “I come from a family that sacrificed a lot. I had two paths: the darkness that diverts boys from the right path and carries them to crime and drugs, or work hard to become what I am.”

After his parents separated, his mother took on the role of raising nine children in a crime-infested community. Unable to afford modern forms of transportation, ‘Chimy’ would wake up at six in the morning and use a horse that his grandmother lent him to ride into practice at local club Tiro Federal, before training while barefoot.

At 17, he had the chance to trial at Espanyol, but he returned home six months later. It was in 2013, at 19 years old, where he experienced the toughest tribulations of his life: he was arrested for trying to rob the club’s headquarters, and the ensuing judicial proceedings caused his career to be put on hold for two years.

Between a failed move to the Seattle Sounders and a debilitating disease that put his daughter on death’s doorstep, Chimy nearly quit football. He worked as a construction worker to afford the medical costs, but his mother never let him quit his dream.

One day, after weeks of constant prayer, his daughter was miraculously cured. In addition, San Lorenzo, one of Argentina’s ‘Big Five’ clubs, took a chance on him and gave him a professional contract. He didn’t play much there, so when his ex-teammate Leo Franco, then-manager of Huesca, allowed him to join his side in northeast Spain, he didn’t hesitate.

Thanks in part to his 7 goals and 3 assists, Huesca miraculously earned promotion to the first division for the first time in their history. The club promptly extended his loan, but despite a late turnaround in form in which Chimy chipped in 10 goals, Huesca wasn’t able to stay up, and dropped back to the Segunda.

One club’s loss was another club’s gain, and after topping the Segunda, Osasuna paid €2.7 million for his services. More than just his goals, his nonstop running, aggressive tackling, and never-say-die spirit will make Chimy a success at El Sadar. Jagoba Arrasate mostly opted for a 4-2-3-1 last season, but he could modify his formation to a 4-4-2 to accommodate Chimy and new arrival Marc Cardona up top. Once again, Chimy will attempt to defy the odds and secure safety for Osasuna.

BET: LA LIGA

*Osimehem had not signed for Lille at the time of writing

Given the fact that he’s been in the spotlight for so long, it’s hard to believe Victor Osimhen is still just 20 years old. He exploded onto the scene in the 2015 U-17 World Cup, leading Nigeria to the title. Then at the Lagos-based Ultimate Strikers Academy, Osimhen won a plethora of awards–the Golden Boot (10 goals), the Silver Ball, and the CAF Youth Player of the Year award.

His breakthrough success pushed Wolfsburg to sign him to a pre-contract, with the Nigerian signing a three-and-a-half-year deal in January 2017. However, just weeks after joining the club, he suffered a serious knee injury, and the ensuing meniscal operation ruled him out of action until the penultimate league match of the season.

The following season wasn’t much better. Osimhen struggled for minutes during an injury-plagued 2017/18, and he decided to pursue greener pastures.

While he underwent trials at Belgian sides Club Brugge and Zulte Waregem, a summer bout with malaria had weakened his physical condition to the point where neither team were ready to take him on loan. Instead, Charleroi gave him a chance, with a season-long loan and an option to purchase for €3.5 million.

Osimhen took the opportunity by the scruff of his neck, scoring 19 goals in 30 appearances, winning Charleroi’s Player of the Season award, with the club just barely missing out on a spot in the Europa League play-offs, after Antwerp came from behind to earn a spot in this summer’s qualifiers.

Charleroi’s owners are already rubbing their fingers with ambitions of making a hefty profit on Osimhen’s sale. Despite failing to start over Odion Ighalo during this summer’s AFCON, he’s still an object of interest for Lille, who will be playing Champions League football next season after finishing second in Ligue 1.

Les Dogues are close to securing Osimhen for a fee rising to a total of €14 million. The transfer, which would be Charleroi’s record sale by some distance, would give the Belgian club a net profit of over €10 million on the Nigerian forward. Talk about a bargain.

*Osimhen signed for Lille in a deal worht a reported €14 million

BET: LIGUE 1

MORE SOCCER