AFTER A chaotic few hours during the week, Florin Manea, Radu Dragusin’s agent, summed up the widespread surprise at the outcome of his transfer saga.
Tottenham had just pipped Bayern Munich to the signing of the highly rated 21-year-old defender for a reported fee of around €30 million.
“We can’t believe we turned down Bayern. Radu had given his word to Spurs and chose to respect this,” Manea told Romanian media. “There was more money from Bayern but Radu said that this [Spurs] is the right step in his career. Maybe in the future, we will get there [to Bayern].”
Not many players turn down the German side who are bidding for their 12th successive Bundesliga title this season.
It’s particularly striking that he chose Spurs — a club far from guaranteed Champions League football every season — over Bayern Munich, a side often considered among the favourites to win the competition outright.
Just six months previously, Harry Kane, arguably Spurs’ greatest-ever player, decided Bayern was a more attractive destination.
So why did Dragusin think differently?
There is no one answer to that question and it’s clear from Manea’s response that it was not an easy decision to make.
Yet there are several ways of looking at it.
Perhaps Dragusin had his negative early-career experience at Juventus in mind, where he struggled to establish himself as a first-team regular and felt history was less likely to repeat itself at Tottenham.
In addition, speaking to the Romanian outlet Digisport, Manea came out with some even more eye-catching and inflammatory quotes.
“I was looking at a picture from when we started together at Juve, I was looking at how skinny he was,” he said.
“We are only at the beginning of the road, we want them to reach the best clubs in the world.
“We were close, Bayern is among the biggest clubs, but his dream is Real or Barcelona.
“If he was 23-24 years old and had more experience, maybe he would have decided to go to Bayern, but I also took into account the age, and the competition, I took into account many things.
“In three or four years I see him at Real Madrid.”
The fact that he signed a six-and-a-half-year deal with Spurs, coupled with chairman Daniel Levy’s notorious reluctance to sell major assets, suggests the above comments may be a tad fanciful.
Yet he probably has a better chance of following this pathway at Spurs, who previously sold both Luka Modric and Gareth Bale to Madrid.
Moreover, if Dragusin doesn’t win the title at Bayern, it would be a disastrous season. On the other hand, should he help Spurs to a first-ever Premier League triumph, he would surely instantly become a club legend. Of course, both scenarios are improbable.
But there is undoubtedly an excitement about the Ange Postecoglou project that would have helped sway Dragusin.
The Australian coach, as he has demonstrated multiple times during his media dealings, is an excellent communicator and was in regular contact with the Romanian international before the move was sealed.
Spurs currently sit fifth in the table, six points off leaders Liverpool after 20 games played.
They were in the same position in the table at this point last season under Antonio Conte and only six points worse off. Nonetheless, Postecoglou has transformed the club, with the feel-good factor much more palpable than was invariably the case under Conte and his breathtaking style of play in stark contrast to the Italian’s increasingly sterile tactics.
The Dragusin move adds to the sense that Spurs are a club going places, and there is a sense of optimism that it will be the latest in a long line of smart transfers by the North London outfit.
It is another move that bears the fingerprints of Fabio Paratici, Spurs’ former director of football, who was forced to resign and banned from football last season for his involvement in the ‘plusvalenza scandal’ during a previous 11-year spell as chief football officer at Juventus.
Paratici has been arguably as integral to Spurs’ success this season as Postecoglou. Despite the ban, he is still seen regularly at Tottenham and has been continually advising Levy in an informal capacity.
It was the 51-year-old Italian who was instrumental in bringing Dragusin to Juventus as a 16-year-old despite interest from other top clubs.
The youngster never quite established himself as a mainstay in Turin but then the same can be said of Dejan Kulusevski, Rodrigo Bentancur and Cristian Romero, who have all flourished since moving to England.
Paratici’s reputation has also been enhanced by the emergence of two more young players he signed.
Last season, the jury was out on Pape Matar Sarr (€17 million from Metz) and Destiny Udogie (€17.8 million from Udinese).
Sarr was a fringe player who seldom started games, although, on one of the rare occasions he featured, the midfielder conceded a last-minute penalty against Southampton that led to Conte’s infamous rant and subsequent swift departure from the club.
Udogie, meanwhile, did not play a minute of action, having been immediately loaned back to Udinese for the entirety of last season.
Both players have thrived under Postecoglou.
Paratici was also reportedly influential in the recruitment of Guglielmo Vicario, Micky van de Ven, Pedro Porro, Yves Bissouma and James Maddison, all of whom have been excellent for Spurs this season when available.
And Dragusin might well soon come to be seen as their latest astute acquisition in the transfer market.
His stats are certainly impressive. Having been key to Genoa’s promotion last season, he has stepped up to the challenge of playing in Serie A this campaign.
Per Goal.com, he has won more aerial duels than any other player this season in the Italian top flight other than six-foot, six-inch Hellas Verona striker Milan Duric.
He also has a better success rate (93.8%) than all of the other 232 players who have attempted 15-plus tackles in Serie A.
However, whether he can even usurp Tottenham’s first-choice central defensive partnership of Van de Ven and Romero remains to be seen.
Regardless, the Romanian is likely to see plenty of game time, with the aforementioned pairing frequently missing this season through injury and suspension, prompting Postecoglou to resort to invariably playing two natural full-backs (Ben Davies and Emerson Royal) at the heart of the defence.
Today’s match at Old Trafford also seems like a battle of clubs with two very specific transfer policies.
No fewer than seven members of Tottenham’s first-team squad have been signed from Italian clubs, and at least four of those are among the first names on the teamsheet.
Meanwhile, Man United’s frequent forays into the Dutch football market have been perceived as considerably less successful.
That said, for all the recent hype surrounding Spurs, a win today would move the Red Devils to within five points of the North Londoners and Erik ten Hag’s men pulled off a spectacular 3-2 victory over Aston Villa in their most recent home encounter.
Yet the overall momentum going into the game seems to be with the visitors, who have won five of their last six matches.
While United are often perceived as a side in stasis, Spurs appear to have finally fully moved on from the Mauricio Pochettino era, four years after his departure.
Drăgușin’s arrival and the exit during the week of longstanding defender Eric Dier felt like another significant symbolic moment — Ben Davies and Son Heung-min are now the only remaining players in the squad who featured regularly during the Argentine coach’s much-vaunted tenure.
