Villarreal take Takefusa Kubo on loan from Real Madrid

Villarreal are taking Takefusa Kubo on loan from Real Madrid next season. AS has confirmed the agreement between player and clubs is total and the deal will be announced either later today or tomorrow.

It is strictly a one-year deal with no purchase option; between the loan fee and Kubo’s salary, Villarreal will shell out around €5m for Kubo’s services. Real Madrid had massive interest from various clubs to take him on loan, so they weren’t willing to negotiate any purchase option.

If you remember, Kubo joined the Barcelona youth system in 2011, but was forced to return to Japan in 2015, as FIFA penalized the Catalan giants for signing underage players. He’s barely 19 (his birthday was in June). He was the youngest player to play in the J-League, youngest to score (before his 16th birthday). He joined Real Madrid last summer and was loaned to Mallorca. Let’s face it, he didn’t exactly have the best supporting cast around him, but he scored 4 goals and 5 assists for the islanders.

Transfermarkt just upped Kubo’s market value from €13m to €30m as a result of his year at Mallorca, so no way Madrid is going to do anything other than loan him.

Bayern Munich wanted to take him on loan and offered more money than Villarreal, but Madrid wanted him to play in La Liga, and Kubo wanted that as well. So here we are.

I am normally not a big fan of strictly “rent-a-player” deals, but in this case we have a potential superstar (admittedly, still young) who has every incentive to succeed here. With Villarreal appearing in three competitions, and Kubo’s ability to play pretty much anywhere as an attacking midfielder, he’s clearly going to get every opportunity to shine. And clearly he will generate a LOT of interest in the Yellow Submarine in Japan, if only for one season!

Another advantage of the deal is that we are not paying a large transfer fee....so that money stays available, and there seem to be lots of other rumors floating around.