Trigoria opened its doors for the first day of training camp today. Under normal circumstances, that would be the story. Instead, with camp underway, and thanks to the ongoing World Cup, there’s still plenty of work to do on the transfer market, Paulo Dybala’s renewal notwithstanding. Strengthening the attack remains Gian Piero Gasperini’s clear priority. Roma have rarely made it through a July without some last-minute scrambling, and this year’s version has an intriguing name attached to it: Nicolò
Tresoldi.
That name got a lot more concrete today. Nico Schira, who doesn’t miss on this stuff often, reported that Tresoldi has reached an agreement in principle with Roma on a contract running through 2031, and that the 21-year-old prefers the move to the Giallorossi over interest he’s fielded from multiple Bundesliga clubs. That’s worth pausing on. It’s nice to see that Roma have found a young, promising striker who’s already decided he wants this move to Roma, over German suitors who could’ve offered a smoother transition given he came up through the Hannover 96 academy. Maybe he’s genuinely sold on Rome. Maybe his camp is just playing the market well. Either way, it’s a good problem to have.
The interest isn’t coming out of nowhere. While Roma’s search for a starting winger has taken a lot of the spotlight recently, the interest in Tresoldi stems more from Roma’s need for a deputy to Donyell Malen. The Dutchman has become central to Gasperini’s attack, and Tresoldi fits the profile of a strong addition to make sure Malen doesn’t run himself into the ground while playing in three competitions. He’s a Cagliari-born forward with German and Italian roots, fresh off a season in Belgium where he scored more than 20 goals across all competitions as Club Brugge won the title. Those goals weren’t just against minnows in the Belgian league; he’s scored against Barcelona and Monaco in the Champions League this season. If Gasperini wants a Malen understudy capable of actually starting games rather than looking like a step down, the profile holds up.
Then there’s the part of this that always makes a deal feel more real to me than a transfer fee does. According to La Gazzetta dello Sport, Tresoldi has been on the phone in recent days with Roma midfielder Niccolò Pisilli, the two having built a friendship while they both played at the youth level. Pisilli is reportedly playing agent on Roma’s behalf (thank you, Niccolò with two cs). Every big transfer eventually gets reduced to numbers and release clauses, but somewhere underneath all of that there’s usually one guy texting another guy: come here, it’s good, trust me. Pisilli vouching for Trigoria from the inside is exactly the kind of thing that tips a close decision, and it’s the sort of detail that doesn’t usually surface until the retrospective piece gets written months later on how a deal actually came together.
Here’s where the good feelings run out, though, and faithful Romanisti know what happens next. The club is amazing at agreeing personal terms with a player (ask Mason Greenwood, allegedly—but thank goodness he’s off to Turkey). That’s the easy part of a transfer. Getting the selling club to say yes is where deals go to die every summer. Per fussballdaten.de, Atletico Madrid have already reached an agreement with Tresoldi as well, and Roma also have to fend off Borussia Dortmund and RB Leipzig, who are reportedly interested in the 21-year-old.Atletico already had an offer to Brugge rejected as too low, which cuts two ways: they’re serious enough to already be negotiating, but they clearly haven’t found Brugge’s real number yet either.
That number is the whole problem. Reports out of Belgium have Brugge’s asking price for Tresoldi as high as €30 million; Schira’s own figure puts it closer to €25 million. Whichever is closer to reality, that’s a significant investment; that’s around what the Giallorossi spent on Matías Soulé, for context. We all know that this club has spent the last several years scraping its way through Financial Fair Play, one strategic sale at a time. Roma need to accelerate talks with Brugge and get a deal done before the competition does, and that’s true even without the potential Artem Dovbyk departure that Genoa are still reportedly monitoring.
Here’s where I land: I like the player, I like the fit, and I especially like that he wants to be here more than he wants to win a bidding war for his own signature back in the Bundesliga. Still, “agreement in principle” has kicked off plenty of Roma transfer sagas that dragged into late August, only for the dance to end with the Giallorossi standing with an unexpected and underwhelming partner. Atletico Madrid with real money to spend isn’t a club you outwait; they may not be their crosstown rivals or Barcelona, but they are a true giant in the game. If this move is going to happen, which it should, Roma’s recruitment staff needs to just bite the bullet and go pay Club Brugge what they’re asking for. In my book, it’s as simple as that.
