Kun Agüero to stay in Atletico
Jose Seguí, one of the agents from IMG that represents Agüero, said yesterday in Calciomercato.it that Agüero just wants to stay in Atletico. Agüero has been linked to some of the most powerful teams in Europe, as his €36 million buy out clause doesn’t seem like a big obstacle for teams like Chelsea, Man United, Inter Milan, FC Barcelona or Real Madrid. However, Kun has shown once again that his intention is to play for Atletico another year.
Atletico Madrid fans are tired of seeing how different managers pick one player that is loved by the crowd until those players end outside the club. The case is even more ridiculous when we see those managers kicked out within months afterwards.
Radomir Antic picked on Simeone until El Cholo left to Lazio. Then Manzano didn’t rest until Movilla had to go to Zaragoza. Now it seems that Abel, a manager respected by the fans, seems to have decided that Maxi Rodriguez, a proud captain of Altetico Madrid since el Niño Torres left, has to leave the club.
The club even seems to have decided who will replace the Argentinean. Lafita from Zaragoza is the chosen one. It’s been reported in the media that Garcia Pitarch met the Real Zaragoza board last Thursday in order to advance in the negotiations. Lafita seems to us a good player, but it became been very clear last season that the squad is short, so it doesn’t make sense for us to get rid of a good player to buy another one with less merits than Maxi Rodriguez.
Kun Agüero will stay in Atletico, says Aguirre
Atlético Madrid coach Javier Aguirre commented on the news linking Sergio Agüero with Manchester City. The Mexican said that the Argentinian is happy at Atlético and will fulfill his contract.
“On the subject of him possibly leaving, he has a contract here, he is happy here and I’m sure that he is going to want to stay,” said Aguirre. “Sergio, I truly believe, is going to do very good things here.”
Machester City sent scouts to watch the Argentinean play for Atlético against Getafe on Wednesday night. Agüero’s contract still has four years left to run and has a €60m buy-out clause. That figure was set to deter potential buyers after the player’s £16m move from Independiente in 2006, but would not provide a significant hurdle to City’s new owners. Atletico were reported to reject a €35 million offer from Chelsea last summer, which was the main reason why the club increased the buy-out clause from €55m to €60m later this year.
Other reports link Kun Agüero with Inter Milan, after his father in law, Diego Maradona, has signed with Internazionale as sports director.
It is funny to see how, for once that the club has not tried to make profit selling their starts, they have hurried to show off that they received very important offers for four of the main players this summer and are delighted that none of them wanted to jump ship and leave. The fans still remember the cases of Fernando Torres, Simeone, Vieri, Juninho, Futre, and so on, so we will still need much more to recover the trust in the board of the club.
Los Colchoneros’ sporting director Jesus Garcia Pitarch revealed that “We received huge offers for four of our first-team players and in all four cases the will of the players was to stay here and the club did not want transfer them, I am delighted about that.”
While no names were mentioned Sergio Aguero, Diego Forlan, Maxi Rodriguez and Simao Sabrosa were all linked with moves away from the Vicente Calderon in the media.
Atletico were also linked with the buying of several players, like Diego, Rafael Van der Vaart and David Silva, but in the end were unable to land any of them.
“It is a matter of buying players at the right price and not to unbalance the equilibrium at the club. We also have to maintain the financial side of things too,” he continued.
Gregory Coupet, John Heitinga, Paulo Assuncao, Tomas Ujfalusi, Florent Sinama-Pongolle and Ever Banega did join however, and they have raised the expectation levels.
“Our aim this season is to finish in the top three. After the signings that we have made this summer I think we have to aim for more than last season,” Garcia Pitarch explained.
“We have players with a lot of experience and a very high competitive level and I am convinced we can do very well this season.
“We weighed everything up and while the squad may appear to be a bit small, it is always good to have an opening should a player from the B-team prove himself and make the step up.”
All Atletico de Madrid fans fear every summer to see if any of our main players will be transferred. Therefore, it was a good news that García Pitarch appeared before the media saying that any club that wants to enjoy the services of El Kun will have to part with €60 million to meet his buy-out clause.
“Last year, we had a negotiation to set his buy-out clause at €55 million, which will be increased to €60 million this year, and that has already come into effect,” he explained.
Although it is only a mere €5 million rise, García Pitarch said that the Atletico de Madrid is no in a hurry to increase it any further in the near future, despite the player attracting numerous interests from several big clubs during the summer and the threat of a possible transfer market revolution.
“At the moment, we are not going to review his clause again and we are very calm about his future. Moreover, he has shown that he is not interested at all in leaving Atlético Madrid,” he added confidently.
We hope that this move does not mean that the club is willing to repeat the operation that they did with Fernando Torres, when they established a €40 million buy-out clause just to set a price that a big club would find affordable. El Kun Agüero manifested last summer that he will think again about his future in one or two years, depending on the performance of the team.
