The deal is almost closed.

“Spartak” continues to cause a stir in the transfer market. In the off-season, this is one of the busiest Russian clubs. After negotiations for Jesús Medina and Theo Bongonde, the red and white moved to the defensive group and found a candidate for the role of left-back.

I tried to sign again in the winter

Rogerio is a 25-year-old Brazilian who has been playing in Serie A for Sassuolo for six seasons. The breeders of the Moscow club paid attention to the defender in December 2022, but then, in addition to the “red and white”, the French footballer claimed “Nice” – and it seemed that the latter would be the favorite. The Italians rejected Spartak’s offer, but they didn’t sell Rogerio to Ligue 1 either – he remained at Sassuolo until the end of the season – and the Muscovites brought Portuguese Tomas Tavares to the left wing.

By the summer the situation had changed. The 25-year-old defender spent another season at a high level, he started receiving even more playing time, while his current contract with the black and greens was only a year away. The demand for the Brazilian in Spartak remains, and the market is slowly thawing: Feyenoord supports Zakharyan, Turkey was interested in Chalov, Kuzyaev is moving to Le Havre from League 1. Yes, and Bongonda still managed to bring.

According to the latest data, the parties are negotiating, Spartak is ready to pay Sassuolo compensation of 8 million euros – it remains to agree on the amount and form a payment plan. At the same time, the footballer himself is not averse to moving to Russia, the “red and whites” managed to get through to the Brazilian and discuss the preliminary terms of the contract.

Entering the season with Khlusevich and Denisov is dangerous

Spartak’s shortage of cornerbacks is nothing new. The winter signing of Tomas Tavares was useful: the Portuguese managed to recover from a serious injury and attracted the Muscovites thanks to his experience with Abascal and his variability. This is a top-tier defender by standards RPLbut the injury did not go away – and in training with the youth team of Portugal, Tomas he got hurt again. It was reported that we are talking about a cruciate ligament rupture – in this case it will not be possible to see him on the field soon.

And the horror is that apart from Tavares in Spartak there are no laterals of a comparable level. Daniil Denisov and Daniil Khlusevich started regularly at the start. The first physical data corrupted, but often cut on defense and was unable to play a pass. The latter also had problems with position reading and reliability. At first they only went out due to the lack of a quality alternative. Only Leon Klassen remains on the bench – there are also big questions about his qualities.

In this state of affairs, it is crucial to draw Rogerio to him. The affair has several risk factors. First of all, this is a narrowly focused left-back: he is not that versatile, does not impress with attacking play and prefers reliability in defense. But this is also his strength. Spartak has enough universals – Tavares himself went out both on the right (native position) and on the left, Denisov was moved between the wing and the center of the field, Litvinov – between the positions of central defender and defensive midfielder, Khlusevich – between the hips. Now Medina, a footballer who in theory can also cover the left curb, has replenished the squad. But Muscovites lack truly reliable players in defense. The Brazilian defender is able to fill this need: in the long run he will balance Abascal’s offensive style, which leads to the formation of free zones.

In early July, in addition to Rogerio, it was reported that Spartak was considering signing Olympiacos defender Oleg Ryabchuk – however, the matter did not go further than rumors of interest, so the Sassuolo player becomes a priority option.

Quality transfer campaign

Spartak has been missing this for a long time, to compete with Zenit they need adequate reinforcement. In the meantime efficiency “red-white” on the market was extremely weak. Jordan Larsson and Alex Kral, Ponce benefited only one season apart, Til, Urunov, Mirzov, Hendrix and they completely failed. More recent examples are Klassen, Nicholson, Coffrier.

In the current off-season, Muscovites have the opportunity for the first time in a long time to run a solid and high-quality campaign, which can be assessed positively. Bongonda is perfectly capable of raising the bar RPLMedina has already shown quality in CSKA – both will qualitatively strengthen the attacking group, setting variability on the flanks. Rogerio will close the poor full-back position – there are players for this, but the quality is extremely low.

Not to mention Davinson Sanchez, the Colombian centre-back who spent his sixth season with a top English Premier League club. And for so long, the footballer never got out of the Tottenham main clip. Actually RPL such players are capable of being the best – recall at least the example of Dejan Lovren, who replaced Liverpool with Zenit, or a more recent example – Malcolm, who did not play in Barcelona, ​​​​​​but remains the best in St. Petersburg team.

It remains to be hoped that there are no significant obstacles to formalizing the agreement for Rogerio – then in the future the League will receive a new legionnaire fort, which RPL lacks.