AC Milan have been linked with a move for Tottenham target and Real Betis star Johnny Cardoso, but Ange Postecoglou’s side hold a telling advantage over their Italian rivals.
Tottenham agreed to sell attacking midfielder Giovani Lo Celso to Betis late last month for a fee in the region of £8.4m (€9.9m / $11m), with the Argentina international returning to the club he left permanently in January 2020.
This deal was partly done to secure the services of United States international Cardoso, but according to Italian publication Calciomercato, Tottenham could risk ‘losing out’ on the 22-year-old to Milan.
The report claims the Serie A side have ‘every intention of initiating’ contact with Cardoso, especially after losing defensive midfielder Ismael Bennacer for four months due to a calf injury.
Milan recruited full-back Emerson Royal from Spurs earlier this summer and he and Cardoso share the same agent – which, typically, could help in a possible deal. However, this is, seemingly, not a typical transfer.
Earlier this month, Betis president Angel Haro confirmed Tottenham had negotiated an option to buy the former Internacional ace in next summer’s transfer window.
During the talks for the Lo Celso move, the Spanish club accepted an offer on Cardoso that can be triggered with a £21m (€25m / $27.7m) fee.
The Telegraph claim that the window for Spurs’ option lasts for just two weeks during 2025, with other teams able to compete for him when it expires.
“Johnny is a player who is of interest not only to Tottenham, but to many other teams, who has great potential and in this case, within the Gio [Lo Celso] operation, they asked us for an option to buy for a value that was important and interesting for us and we did give them that option,” Haro said.
Milan may try and find a way round this agreement with a move in January but Spurs are likely to hold the upper hand in negotiations.
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The United States’ rising star
Cardoso was born to Brazilian parents in New Jersey, United States, but moved to Brazil when he was three months old.
After stints at the academies of Criciuma and Avai, he joined Internacional in 2014 and went onto make his first-team debut just before he turned 18 in September 2021.
The 6ft player went onto make 144 appearances for the Brazilian outfit, scoring seven goals along the way – and that caught the attention of teams in Europe.
In December 2023, Cardoso made the switch from Internacional to Betis on a five-year deal for a fee of approximately £4.7m (€5.6m / $6.3m). But off the back of his performances over the past six months – which have included 23 appearances, one goal, and two assists – he is worth a great deal more than that now.
Back in May, when links with Barcelona began to emerge, Cardoso pledged his future to Betis.
“My head and my goals are in Betis. I arrived a short time ago. I want to continue working and evolving. My head is in Betis and the other things are for my agents,” he said.
How long he stays there remains to be seen.
Postecoglou under pressure
Tottenham’s 1-0 loss to bitter rivals Arsenal on Sunday condemned Postecoglou’s team to a second-straight Premier League defeat as they fell to 13th in the table.
Once again, Spurs’ inability to deal with set pieces came back to haunt them as Gabriel Magalhaes’ second-half header settled the contest at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium.
After spending more than £350m (€415m/$462m) during his tenure as Tottenham boss, pressure is mounting on Postecoglou to take the team forward and challenge for trophies this season.
Despite only Nottingham Forest (23) conceding more set piece goals than Spurs (18) this season and last, the former Celtic boss downplayed it as an issue in a prickly post-match press conference.
“I know for some reason people think I don’t care about set-pieces, and it’s a narrative that you can keep going on for ages and ages. I understand that,” he said. “Like I said, we work on them all the time, like we do with every other team.
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“It is what it is. It’s my burden to carry and I’m happy to do that. Like I’ve always said, for me there’s a bigger picture that’s at play here that’s much more important than the finer details of us getting to where we want to. For us, the way forward is to, as I said, try and turn the football we’re playing now into something meaningful.
“We’re a team that’s progressing in many areas. With all that sort of progress, there’s always kind of new challenges and new things that you need to overcome. When I look at the four games in isolation this year, our football’s been more consistent and more compelling than it was in our first four games last year. Obviously the results don’t reflect that.
“I think we’ve made progress in certain areas, but there’s other areas, like I said, we still need to improve on. That’s my job, to kind of fill those gaps as quickly as possible.”
Tottenham ‘getting more creative’ with transfers
Incidentally, according to former Manchester City financial advisor and football finance expert Stefan Borson, Spurs’ priority option to sign Cardoso is an illustration of the north London team’s creativity.
He told Football Insider: “I think clubs are getting more and more creative with the deals. If you are selling to Betis, you know that you are probably not going to maximise your cash inflow from the deal.
“There are going to have to be other bits and pieces, be that sell-on clauses or other pieces like first options on other players you are potentially interested in.
“I think you will see more and more creativity around that when people are selling outside of England. Where it’s an English deal, I think you are going to see more deals where people are focused on the headline amount.
“But where clubs are not going to be able to pay huge headline amounts, then they are going to want some additional value within the deal and I’m sure people will get more and more creative around it.”