In the past, Juventus have managed to bring in Andrea Pirlo, Paul Pogba and Sami Khedira among many others on free transfers.
This summer they’ve been at it again, already Aaron Ramsey, Gianluigi Buffon and Adrien Rabiot have made the move to Turin for no transfer fee. Calciomercato reported last night that Juve are close to bringing in Hamza Rafia from Lyon – again on a free.
This will be the lowest profile of the four, but Rafia has been impressing many with his performances for Lyon’s reserves and youth teams and could prove to be yet another masterstroke from the Italian giants.
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Remember Paul Pogba was similarly a “reserve” player when he made the move to Juventus back in 2012.
Rafia is an attacking midfielder who particularly impressed playing in the Uefa Youth League last season with 3 goals and 4 assists in 8 games. He also scored 5 goals in 18 matches playing for Lyon’s second team.
It’s perhaps likely that the Tunisian-born French youth international will start off playing for the B side at Juventus and try to make a positive impression on Maurizio Sarri to earn a call up to the senior squad, should a move go through.
Moise Kean showed last year that there is a pathway to the first team for talented youngsters in Turin, so Rafia will be looking to emulate him should he make the move.
