{"id":614707,"date":"2022-07-06T15:06:04","date_gmt":"2022-07-06T19:06:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/?p=614707"},"modified":"2022-08-30T09:02:11","modified_gmt":"2022-08-30T13:02:11","slug":"juventus-target-serie-a-centre-back","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/2022\/07\/06\/juventus-target-serie-a-centre-back\/","title":{"rendered":"Juventus Target Serie A Defensive Star"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Kalidou Koulibaly is highlighted as a <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/2022\/07\/04\/juventus-kenan-yildiz-bayern-munich\/\" target=\"_self\">Juventus<\/a> target in the defence. He&#8217;s one of many names highlighted to replace <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/2022\/07\/05\/chelsea-change-transfer-plans\/\" target=\"_self\">Matthijs de Ligt<\/a> who&#8217;s expected to leave, according to <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/FabrizioRomano\/status\/1544738666538467328\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Fabrizio Romano<\/a>. Federico Cherubini, the Juventus director, actually met with Koulibaly&#8217;s agent today.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\">\n<p dir=\"ltr\" lang=\"en\">Juventus director Federico Cherubini is meeting with Kalidou Koulibaly\u2019s agent right now. Koulibaly, out of contract in 2023. \ud83c\uddf8\ud83c\uddf3 <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/hashtag\/transfers?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">#transfers<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/SkySport?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">@SkySport<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Koulibaly\u2019s in Juve list as one of many names to replace Matthijs de Ligt who\u2019s expected to leave &#8211; but no talks with Napoli yet.<\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Fabrizio Romano (@FabrizioRomano) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/FabrizioRomano\/status\/1544738666538467328?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">July 6, 2022<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<h2>Juventus Target Kalidou Koulibaly as a Defensive Reinforcement<\/h2>\n<h3>Serie A Stardom<\/h3>\n<p>Koulibaly has long been one of the top defenders in Serie A. He joined Napoli in the 2014\/15 season and hasn&#8217;t looked back since. Not only has Koulibaly dominated in Italy, but he&#8217;s also shown flashes of brilliance in Napoli&#8217;s Champions League campaigns.<\/p>\n<p>In fact, Napoli were the main competitor to Juventus during <em>I Bianconeri<\/em>&#8216;s recent Italian dynasty. Koulibaly was a major part of this. Although <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/2022\/07\/06\/ac-milan-are-targeting-attacking-help\/\" target=\"_self\">AC Milan<\/a> and Inter Milan have reclaimed the top of the league, Napoli and Juventus still qualified for the Champions League.<\/p>\n<p>Koulibaly is 31 years old, meaning he&#8217;s likely closer to the end of his prime rather than the beginning. With that being said, he remains a defensive force and that&#8217;s exactly what Juventus need. De Ligt may be departing, while former captain and club legend Giorgio Chiellini has already left for the United States.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\">\n<p dir=\"ltr\" lang=\"fr\">Le directeur sportif de la Juventus rencontre actuellement l&#8217;agent de Kalidou Koulibaly.<\/p>\n<p>(SkySports) <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/JXunFWAKOG\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">pic.twitter.com\/JXunFWAKOG<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 13football_com (@13footballC) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/13footballC\/status\/1544750067650908161?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">July 6, 2022<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>This leaves Leonardo Bonucci and Daniele Rugani as the other centre-back options remaining on the team. Bonucci is 35-years-old, but a guaranteed starter. For the time being, a centre-back duo of Bonucci and Koulibaly is one to be respected. Acquiring Koulibaly keeps Juventus competitive in the near future, but potentially losing a young star in De Ligt means the club needs to find a long-term replacement as well.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Kalidou Koulibaly is highlighted as a Juventus target in the defence. He&#8217;s one of many names highlighted to replace Matthijs de Ligt who&#8217;s expected to leave, according to Fabrizio Romano. Federico Cherubini, the Juventus director, actually met with Koulibaly&#8217;s agent today. Juventus director Federico Cherubini is meeting with Kalidou Koulibaly\u2019s agent right now. Koulibaly, out [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2248,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1362,7188,5,28],"tags":[1805,1988],"class_list":["post-614707","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-juventus","category-rumours","category-serie-a","category-transfers","tag-kalidou-koulibaly","tag-matthijs-de-ligt"],"modified_by":"Michael Kovacs, ADMIN","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/614707","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2248"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=614707"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/614707\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=614707"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=614707"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=614707"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}