MADRID (AP) \u2014 Spain left back Alejandro \u201c\u00c1lex\u201d Grimaldo is finally returning home after joining Atl\u00e9tico Madrid from Bundesliga side Bayer Leverkusen.<\/p>\n
The 30-year-old Grimaldo signed a contract through June 2030, the La Liga team said on Tuesday.<\/p>\n
Grimaldo, who was born in Valencia, never played in a top-flight Spanish team. He progressed through youth teams at Atl\u00e9tico Vallbonense, Valencia and Barcelona before joining Portuguese side Benfica, where he rose to prominence and then joined Leverkusen in 2023.<\/p>\n
Grimaldo, who can also play as a wingback, central midfielder and attacking midfielder, starred during Leverkusen\u2019s historic Bundesliga and German Cup double in 2024. Altogether he scored 30 goals and set up 45 more in 145 appearances for the German team.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe was undoubtedly a key part of our shared success,\u201d Leverkusen sporting director Simon Rolfes said. \u201cHis style of play was a defining feature of our Werkself, and his free kicks were iconic. For that, we owe him our thanks. We now bid Grima farewell with our best wishes for his time ahead in La Liga.\u201d<\/p>\n
Kicker magazine reported Atl\u00e9tico had agreed to pay a transfer fee of 22 million euros ($25 million), potentially rising to 25 million ($28.5 million), for the player who had just one more year on his Leverkusen contract.<\/p>\n
Grimaldo has made 14 appearances for Spain and is part of the squad competing at the World Cup.<\/p>\n
Marc Cucurella, who joined Atl\u00e9tico\u2019s city rival Real Madrid, has been Spain coach Luis de la Fuente\u2019s first choice at left back for the tournament so far.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"MADRID (AP) \u2014 Spain left back Alejandro \u201c\u00c1lex\u201d Grimaldo is finally returning home after joining Atl\u00e9tico Madrid from…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":46129,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[21161],"tags":[21182,39057,759,799,795,31617,156],"class_list":["post-46128","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-bayer","tag-bayer","tag-grimaldo-atletico-madrid-bayer-leverkusen-transfer","tag-marc-cucurella","tag-package-100502-member-choice-sports-option","tag-product-30599-ap-sports-news-s-wire-only","tag-simon-rolfes","tag-spain"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46128","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=46128"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46128\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/46129"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=46128"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=46128"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=46128"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}