Ronaldo, Julio Baptista and Ivan Helguera will reportedly leave Real Madrid before Thursday’s transfer deadline if the club can arrange exchange deals. Ronaldo would be swapped for Inter Milan striker Adriano to rejoin the club he played for from 1997-2002. Midfielder Baptista would move to Arsenal, with Spain forward Jose Antonio Reyes achieving a long-awaited transfer to the Spanish club, and defender Helguera would join Valencia in return for Argentina’s Roberto Ayala. The deals would continue Madrid’s transformation under new president Ramon Calderon and recently appointed coach Fabio Capello, who are seeking to end the club’s three-year drought without a a major trophy. Speculation has surrounded Ronaldo’s future since March when he threatened to quit the club after being regularly jeered by fans attending Madrid’s home games. Calderon recently suggested if the price was right he was prepared to offload the striker, who is under contract until 2008. The Spanish club held talks with AC Milan last week although the clubs failed to agree to a fee.Capello reportedly prefers the style and youth of the 24-year-old Adriano to Ronaldo, who is five years older. Ronaldo has yet to play under Capello as he is recovering from knee surgery after the World Cup. Ronaldo’s position in the team is also threatened by the recent signing of Ruud van Nistelrooy from Manchester United. The three-time world player of the year helped Madrid win the Spanish league in his first season, but the club has since won nothing in its longest streak without silverware since the early 1950s. The Reyes-Baptista swap is said to hold the key to Ronaldo’s departure, El Pais newspaper said.Baptista’s departure to Arsenal would free up one of the three places allocated to non-EU players in Madrid’s squad and allow Adriano would take up the place. Madrid has made earlier cash bids to sign Reyes, but Arsenal’s insistence on a higher fee halted any deal.The London club hoped to sign Baptista from Sevilla a year ago, although the Brazil midfielder instead chose to join Madrid in a ?20 million (US$25 million) deal. Baptista is regarded as dispensable by Capello, who has already brought in three other new players as well as van Nistelrooy – Fabio Cannavaro, Emerson and Mahamadou Diarra. Reyes, who joined Arsenal from Sevilla in January 2004 and who last year extended his contract to 2011, has long since shown interest in a return home. The 22-year-old said last weekend he wouldn’t play again in the English league and, with Atletico Madrid also interested, suggested he didn’t mind which Spanish club he joined. The deal between Madrid and Arsenal would initially involve a season’s loan, allowing Reyes to escape a financial penalty he promised to pay Atletico if he didn’t join. Helguera, who joined Madrid in 1999, had hoped to finish his career with the club but Capello has informed him that he is surplus to requirements.
(realmadrid.dk)
Obviously this is getting stupid….we dont need Reyes and we dont need Adriano for the time being but for Baptista it would be good cause the way i c it he won’t get any first team play and that would waste a year of his career. Also Adriano is a lunatic, everyday he has a different opinion one day “I want to come to Real” a week after that “I want to stay with Inter and win silverware with them” WTF??!! u c i am confused as u r fellow reader 😛
DB23's Blog 
Recent Comments