Sr. Roig said last week that he expected Giuseppe Rossi to remain with Villarreal. It's up to him to prove himself right, as Juventus are now making their move.
Marca, quoting reports from Italy, now reports Rossi's agent has reached agreement with Juve on a four-year deal for Rossi worth €3.5m per year.
EPM had already reported Mr. Pastorello is on his way to Vila-real (as is Rossi), presumably to meet with Sr. Roig before Juventus brass show up. Juventus is not, so far, willing to pay the €30m cash that is assumed to be Rossi's price at this point, but have offered either €20m or €25m plus a player, reported to be either Felipe Melo, Marco Motta, or Jorge "Malaka" Martinez.
The one saving grace in all this is that Juventus want to close a deal quickly as well, so this is unlikely to be a long drawn-out transfer saga. From my perspective (I can't speak for my co-bloggers) I would like nothing better than for Sr. Roig to state that Juventus could have bought Rossi for €30m at the start of the summer, they made no offer, and now that training camp has started Rossi's price is €35m, cash, full stop.
It's mystifying that Rossi would make this move--Serie A is losing a Champions League place next year, and the league has fallen well behind the Bundesliga in UEFA coefficient. With Inter, Milan, and the resurgent Roma (not to mention Napoli) Juve's chances of reaching the top again aren't any better than Villarreal's in Spain, and their chances to play in the CL are siginificantly less.
And Juve were deeply stained by the Calciopoli scandal (which has recently returned to the news) and frankly haven't been the same since. A commentator on twitter this morning commented a move to Juve "would be a step backwards" in Rossi's career, and that's how I see it as well.
The only advantage I see Juve has is being in Italy and having a larger worldwide fanbase than Villarreal. But given that Rossi has always said he's happy at Villarreal, and just signed a new contract with (presumably) increased pay, is that enough to justify the move? Hey, I don't think so, but I'm biased! Anyway, we'll see what happens over the course of the next day or two.
And finally, Villarreal has formally confirmed the signing of Cristian Zapata, as reported last week, with a five-year contract.