Milan have sealed the deal to acquire defender Marco Pellegrino from Atletico Platense. The youngster will touch down in Italy Monday night and finalize the transfer Tuesday. He had quickly emerged as the frontrunner in a two-man race to round out their defense. The other contender was PAOK’s Konstantinos Koulierakis, who was pricier.
According to Sky, the 21-year-old will move to Serie A for a €3.5M fee plus €2M potential add-ons and ten percent of a future sale. He’ll stay put and won’t go out on loan.
Pellegrino missed last weekend’s game because the negotiation with Milan was in very advanced stages. Atletico Platense’s president flying to the Peninsula helped conclude it positively in a short amount of time.
The 21-year-old debuted in the pros earlier this year and has made 17 appearances, scoring once. He’s replacing Matteo Gabbia as the fifth center-back behind Fikayo Tomori, Malick Thiaw, Pierre Kalulu, and Simon Kjaer. He’ll pen a five-year contract.
Our Take on Milan and Pellegrino
They didn’t need to spend big for a secondary position and, in fact, they didn’t but still found somebody they believe has potential. He’ll have to wait for his opportunity, though. It’ll be interesting to see whether this addition would cause them to stand pat even should Fode Ballo-Touré depart, as it allows them to shuffle pieces around if need be.
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