For the second time in less than a week, Juventus and Porto have linked up for a transfer involving somebody who has offensive skills and is fluent in his native Portuguese.
The difference this time is that you can say the same thing about somebody is the other half of the deal and his heading back to the country of his birth.
Juventus announced on Thursday that they have completed the swap deal involving Portuguese fullbacks/wingbacks João Mário and Alberto Costa, with the latter heading back to Portugal
after just six months and only a handful of appearances in bianconero. In comes the 25-year-old João Mário, who has been signed for an initial fee of €11.4 million plus another €1.2 million in what has been described as ancillary costs. Going the other way is the 21-year-old Costa, who heads to Porto on an initial €15 million valuation. Thus it ends one of the shorter Juventus tenures in recent memory from a permanent signing, with Costa arriving in mid-January only to head back home to Portugal after a little over six months and at a time in which he seemed to truly develop a role under Igor Tudor.
The total capital gain that Juventus will generate by selling Costa all of six months after signing him from Vitória de Guimarães? All of about €2.3 million.
Here are the details on the Mario half of the deal, courtesy of the Juventus press office:
Turin, 24 July 2025 – Juventus Football Club S.p.A. announces that an agreement with Porto FC for the definitive acquisition of the registration rights of the player João Mário Neto Lopes has been reached for a consideration of € 11.4 million, payable in four financial years, with the addition of ancillary costs up to € 1.2 million.
Juventus and the player have signed a contract of employment until the 30 June 2030.
And here are the details on the Alberto Costa half of the deal, courtesy of that same Juventus press office:
Turin, 24 July 2025 – Juventus Football Club S.p.A. announces that an agreement with Porto FC for the definitive disposal of the registration rights of the player Alberto Oliveira Baio has been reached for a consideration of € 15 million, payable in four financial years, in addition to variable bonuses up to a maximum of € 1 million. This transaction generates a positive economic impact on the current financial year equal to ca. € 2.3 million, net of auxiliary expenses.
On 24 July 2025, as described in the related press release, an agreement was also reached with the same counterparty for the acquisition, on a definitive basis, of the registration rights of the player João Mário Neto Lopes for a fixed consideration of € 11.4 million.
The aforementioned transactions result in a monetary balance to be received by Juventus - based on the differential in fixed consideration and some ancillary expenses - amounting to ca. € 3 million.
So, Costa has indeed returned to Portugal. Instead of heading to Sporting like we’ve heard for a good portion of the last couple of weeks, Costa will now head to their bitter rivals, Porto, who just completed the deal with Juventus that saw Francisco Conceição sign on a permanent deal earlier this week.
Replacing Costa as one of Juventus’ main options at right wingback in Tudor’s 3-4-2-1 formation is his fellow countryman João Mário. What we know is that he could very well be the better player going forward and contributing to the Juve attack. What is still a giant question mark is how this will impact Juventus on the defensive side of things seeing as his record and reputation on that end of the field is ... less than impressive.
But that’s only something we will find out and see how Tudor copes with it once things actually begin. For now, it’s just a worry and something that we know the team will hopefully address in relatively short order. But for the first time in nearly a decade, Juve have somebody from Portugal named João patrolling the right wingback position and will hopefully not be too much of a defensive liability however long his career in Turin spans.
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