Madrid teams go South American

By Carlos Drechsler
June 15 2005

Real and Atlético de Madrid are interested in many South American players. Real is close to sign Robinho, Pablo García and Carlos Diogo, while Atlético is interested in Luciano Galletti, Fernando Gago, Rolando Schiavi and Bulgarian Martin Petrov.

The Madrid archrivals have set their eyes in South America when thinking of strengthening the squad for next season.

Real Madrid is very close to sign the new Brazilian star Robinho, and has made clear the intention of adding Uruguay national team players Pablo García and Carlos Diogo. 'Los Merengues' had offered 16 million euros to Santos for Robinho (21), who expressed his desire to become the next 'galáctico', and the two sides are very close to an agreement.

As for the Uruguayans, Francisco "Paco" Casal will be travelling to Spain in order to get on with transfer talks. He owns the rights of promising full back Carlos Diogo (21), who currently plays on loan for River Plate (Arg.) and has been pointed as one of the best Uruguayan defenders in the last years, and 50 percent of García's rights, co-owned by Osasuna. The 28-year-old midfielder currently plays in that team and Madrid are desperately seeking to purchase him. Osasuna has stated that they are willing to negotiate but still haven't received any offers. He is also pretended by other Spanish teams like Sevilla and Betis, while Diogo had caught Juventus' attention.

Atlético de Madrid has recently appointed highly successful manager Carlos Bianchi and thus embarked on a new ambitious project. Since Riquelme decided to stay in Villarreal, Atlético have started to look for other players, as well as to try to please Bianchi. The Argentine is keen on getting many Argentinian players, most of them Boca Jrs. players. These would be Rolando Schiavi (31, centre back), Fernando Gago (19, defensive midfielder) and Clemente Rodríguez (23, full back, plays for Spartak Moscow).
But 'Los Colchoneros' are currently dealing with another two transfer negotiations: Luciano Galletti and Martin Petrov. Both forwards have spoken of their desire to join Atlético and while the Bulgarian will put pressure on Wolfsburg to be released, the 25-year old Argentine's renewal talks with Zaragoza are paralyzed since there is an economic disagreement. Negotiations between the clubs are not easy: Wolfsburg demands no less than 10 million euros while Atlético can only offer 6 and a set of clauses, and Zaragoza are asking for 4 million but Atlético´s highest bid is of 3 million.