In recent years, Manchester City have become known as world class operators in the transfer market.
Fans have watched as a string of players have come to the Etihad Stadium and gone on to become world-class players under Pep Guardiola.
And City don’t just do well when it comes to bringing in players. They also do a pretty good job selling as well.
The man behind all these transfers in and out of the club? That would be director of football Txiki Begiristain, who has been in his role at City now since October 2012.
He has played a huge role in getting City to where they are today, supplying his managers with the players they have needed in order to compete.
He has had a particularly brilliant relationship with Pep Guardiola since the Spaniard arrived in the summer of 2016, and the pair have helped to establish City as the dominant force in English football.
Txiki is a brilliant deal-maker, but he is about to pull off arguaby his biggest transfer masterstroke yet.
Manchester City selling Julian Alvarez to Atletico Madrid for £82m would be an incredible reflection on Txiki Begiristain
News surfaced last night that Manchester City were close to agreeing a deal to sell Julian Alvarez to Atletico Madrid.
Today, it has been reported that City and Atletico have agreed on a fee of £82 million for the transfer of Alvarez to the Wanda Metropolitano.
This, is a quite remarkable transfer deal for a few reasons.
First and foremost, £82 million is almost six times what the club paid to sign Alvarez. He joined from River Plate for just £14 million.
To turn that kind of profit on a player is just sensational, and to do it just two years after bringing him in is even more incredible.
Txiki and City getting £82 million is also very impressive when you factor in that Alvarez has wanted to leave the club for some time.
There may have been potential for City to be forced to accept a lot lower. But Alvarez has not pushed particularly hard to leave, perhaps because he has been trated very well by the club. Atleti have therefore not been able to get him on the cheap.
Selling Alvarez for £82 million obliterates the previous club record, which was the sale of Raheem Sterling – regarded by many as one of City’s best-ever players – for around £50 million.
A masterstroke, from the best in the game
- Who is Julian Alvarez? The story of the striker who won it all at Man City before joining Atletico Madrid
Txiki has been behind so many great transfer deals – both in and out – at City. But this sale of Alvarez really might just be his finest work yet.
Ultimately, as well as Alvarez did for City, he was always the club’s second-choice striker behind Erling Haaland, and signed for relative peanuts.
He was plucked from River Plate and developed so well by Guardiola, to the point where Atletico have set aside an enormous amount of money because they feel they simply must sign him.
To be making a profit of around £68 million on a player who was arguably never in Pep’s ‘best’ City team with everyone fit is seriously good going, and this deal arguably cements Txiki as the best director of football working in the game today.
