{"id":341984,"date":"2025-08-13T19:56:14","date_gmt":"2025-08-13T19:56:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/341984\/"},"modified":"2025-08-13T19:56:14","modified_gmt":"2025-08-13T19:56:14","slug":"liverpool-closing-in-on-26m-deal-for-defender","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/341984\/","title":{"rendered":"Liverpool closing in on \u00a326m deal for defender"},"content":{"rendered":"

Liverpool are closing in on a \u00a326million deal for Parma\u2019s teenage centre back Giovanni Leoni, who will go straight into the first team set-up.<\/p>\n

Leoni, 18, has emerged as one of the most promising young defenders in Europe and Liverpool are poised to beat Italian clubs Inter Milan and AC Milan in the race to secure his signing.<\/p>\n

It is understood that Premier League sides, including Manchester United and Newcastle United, also showed late interest in the player, who has previously said Virgil van Dijk is his inspiration.<\/p>\n

Provided that there are no late hitches, he will now have the opportunity to learn alongside the Liverpool captain, with Leoni effectively replacing Jarell Quansah<\/a>, who was sold to Bayer Leverkusen for \u00a335million, in head coach Arne Slot\u2019s squad.<\/p>\n

Liverpool\u2019s belief in Leoni is such as that suggestions that he would be loaned back to Parma were never realistic. At 6ft 5in, the robust and athletic defender broke into the Parma starting line-up in the second half of last season under head coach Cristian Chivu, who has since joined Inter, and made 17 appearances during the campaign.<\/p>\n

Parma utilised a back three and Leoni was either in the middle or deployed as the right centre back. <\/p>\n

He was sent off in a game against Roma in February, but then featured in matches against Inter, Juventus and Napoli. Parma did not concede while Leoni was on the pitch in those three matches and he stood up physically in a duel with Romelu Lukaku during the 0-0 draw against Serie A title winners Napoli.<\/p>\n

\"Soccer<\/p>\n

Leoni gets to grips with Lukaku during the draw between Parma and Napoli in May<\/p>\n

LUCA AMEDEO BIZZARRI\/GETTY IMAGES<\/p>\n

Liverpool\u2019s sporting director, Richard Hughes, made contact with the Parma chief executive, Federico Cherubini, on Wednesday to finalise the transfer. It is likely that there will be some add-ons on top of the initial \u00a326million fee. <\/p>\n

The Anfield club has been searching for a young centre half for three successive summers as they look to future-proof their options. Interest in Chelsea\u2019s Levi Colwill, Lille\u2019s Leny Yoro and Bournemouth\u2019s Dean Huijsen could not proceed for different reasons, which has kept the search for a young talent high on Liverpool\u2019s list of priorities.<\/p>\n

Colwill remained at Stamford Bridge with Chelsea<\/a> unwilling to sell, Yoro moved to Manchester United because he wanted to play regularly and Huijsen preferred the lure of Real Madrid.<\/p>\n

Leoni will join Van Dijk, Ibrahima Konat\u00e9 and Joe Gomez as centre backs in the Liverpool first-team squad, and Arrigo Sacchi, the celebrated former AC Milan coach, regards the youngster highly. <\/p>\n

Sacchi believes the under-19 international can become a cornerstone of Italy\u2019s senior team and, writing in Gazzetta dello Sport, was effusive in his praise. \u201cI\u2019m convinced he\u2019ll be the linchpin of the Azzurri defence for a long time,\u201d he wrote. \u201cSome, regarding a possible transfer to Liverpool, object that this young man has only made 17 Serie A appearances so far. Aren\u2019t those few? No, I reply. Not few, because on those occasions Leoni has demonstrated the qualities needed to go far.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf someone is good, if someone has their head in the right place, it\u2019s immediately obvious. A person can have 200 Serie A games under their belts and still not possess the qualities Leoni displayed in his first season as an adult. Talent knows no age.\u201d<\/p>\n

Liverpool have also opened talks with Crystal Palace over Marc Gu\u00e9hi<\/a>, whom they value at about \u00a335million given the England international has only one year remaining on his contract.<\/p>\n

The Palace chairman, Steve Parish, does not want to lose Gu\u00e9hi for free, but a percentage of any sale must go to the player\u2019s former club, Chelsea and, so far, he has valued the England international at a higher price. Talks are continuing for the England international, with Palace aware that the player wants to join the Premier League champions.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Liverpool are closing in on a \u00a326million deal for Parma\u2019s teenage centre back Giovanni Leoni, who will go…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":341985,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8815],"tags":[748,393,4884,179,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-341984","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-liverpool","8":"tag-britain","9":"tag-england","10":"tag-great-britain","11":"tag-liverpool","12":"tag-uk","13":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115023222197155115","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/341984","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=341984"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/341984\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/341985"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=341984"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=341984"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=341984"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}