Juventus Transfer Market: Has Szczesny Chosen the Successor to Perin and Di Gregorio? The Revelation
Juventus Transfer News: Mattia Perin and Michele De Gregorio are out; make way for Kamil Grabara. The 1999-born goalkeeper, who arrived on loan from Wolfsburg, will be the Bianconeri’s second-string goalkeeper behind Guglielmo Vicario, and the Polish player (who has been assigned the number 1) revealed that he believes the involvement of a fellow countryman—who performed so well in Turin in the past—was decisive for this transfer coup. He is, of course, Wojciech Szczesny.
“I’ve spoken with him, and we’ve been in touch for a long time,” Grabara admitted in his first interview with Juventus’ official channels. “Ever since I’ve known him, we’ve stayed in close contact, and I’m pretty sure he’s the one who spoke highly of me to the club. I think that’s why they called me, so I want to thank Wojciech.” The Bianconeri are once again welcoming a Polish goalkeeper after Szczesny himself terminated his contract in 2024 to make way for Di Gregorio. The Old Lady’s new No. 1 was also his predecessor’s third-choice goalkeeper at the 2022 World Cup, where both were called up to represent Poland.
After all, Szczesny’s bond with Juventus remains deep and well-known. In a recent interview with ‘GQ Poland,’ the goalkeeper explained how the Bianconeri shaped him as a professional: “They built me up; they taught me discipline, because it’s a completely different team from any I’d known before. There, winning is the only thing that matters. And I was able to learn that.” Words that perfectly capture the legacy Szczesny left in Turin and that now, indirectly, lives on through Grabara.
On the outgoing front, Di Gregorio’s departure was finalized on the basis of a 2-million loan to Bournemouth with an option to buy set at 14 million. Should the English club decide not to exercise the option, a penalty of 1.5 million is stipulated. For the former Monza player, the possibility of a return to Brianza or to Lazio had faded, while Olympique de Marseille had also turned its attention to other options. Grabara, for his part, arrives on loan from Wolfsburg with an option to buy: standing 195 centimeters tall, the Polish goalkeeper gained experience with Aarhus and Huddersfield before establishing himself at Copenhagen, the club from which he later moved to the Bundesliga.
Perin chose a different path, leaving Juventus permanently—and for the first time since 2018, he is no longer under contract with the Bianconeri — to join Palermo in Serie B on a permanent basis, with a transfer fee of approximately 500,000 euros going to Juventus. This move will allow the goalkeeper to find the playing time that had almost always eluded him during his years in Turin: in eight seasons with Juventus, Perin took the field just 34 times in Serie A, serving as the backup to Szczesny, Buffon, and finally Di Gregorio.
The simultaneous departures of Perin and Di Gregorio have, moreover, produced a side effect of historic significance. With the goalkeeper from the Ciociaria region moving to Serie B, Serie A finds itself, for the first time in nearly a century, without a single player who has earned at least one call-up to the Italian national team for the World Cup. Italy has not participated in the World Cup since the 2014 tournament in Brazil, and Perin—who never took the field on that trip as the third-string goalkeeper—had remained the last surviving player from that era still active in Italy’s top flight. This situation had not occurred since 1934, the year Vittorio Pozzo’s Azzurri won the first Rimet Cup.
