Rossoneri<\/em> keen to sign him to a new contract extension.<\/p>\nEXPERT TAKE<\/h2>\n
ESPN’s Madrid correspondent Alex Kirkland on Julian Alvarez’s future.<\/em><\/p>\n\nAlvarez’s five goals in two LaLiga games — a match-winning hat trick against Rayo Vallecano, and then two crucial goals in Saturday’s Madrid derby — have got everyone talking. “He’s the best player we have,” Atl\u00e9tico coach Diego Simeone said, before adding, pointedly, “we have to look after him…. We need to have him here at Atl\u00e9tico Madrid for many years.”<\/p>\n
Simeone knows it: a player as talented as Alvarez needs a winning team around him, or at least a team that is consistently competing for major trophies. In Atl\u00e9tico’s start to the LaLiga season — with three draws and a loss in six games, going into Saturday’s derby — they didn’t look like one. So it’s no surprise that their star player was once again linked with a potential departure, with Barcelona among the candidates.<\/p>\n
Now, after the derby, the dynamic has changed. As long as Atl\u00e9tico remain competitive, it’s hard to imagine Alvarez pushing for a move. Simeone is his boyhood idol, he followed the team as child, and he loves life in Madrid, although of course, that also goes so far — he’s also a World Cup-winning, elite professional, with ambitions of continuing success at the highest level.<\/p>\n
Alvarez has a contract at Atl\u00e9tico until 2030, and a release clause that is prohibitively high, reportedly of \u20ac500 million.<\/p>\n
Barcelona could not hope to sign him unless they were able to negotiate a deal with Atl\u00e9tico on vastly reduced terms, if at all; Atl\u00e9tico would only be willing to do so if Alvarez made crystal clear his desire to leave, and that would only happen if the team fall well short of expectations this season.<\/p>\n
If Atl\u00e9tico compete for the LaLiga title, and progress to the latter stages of the Champions League, it’s hard to see Alvarez going anywhere.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n
OTHER RUMORS<\/h2>\n