OFFICIALLY OFFICIAL: Juventus sign Renato Veiga on loan from Chelsea

01/27/2025 04:45 PM

At long last, another center back arrives.

It has taken until one of the final days of the January transfer window, but we can say that Juventus finally has a little bit of depth in the center of their defense.

It's not a huge improvement on things, but it's a little bit better than what we've seen for much of the 2024-25 season.

Juventus announced Monday that they have completed their second short-term loan signing in less than a week, this time with Chelsea defender Renato Veiga arriving for the second half of the 2024-25 season. Veiga's arrival means that Juventus will finally have some sort of backup plan and the possibility of rotating players after Federico Gatti and Pierre Kalulu have played basically every minute during a busy January in which now-former captain Danilo has been frozen out of the squad ahead of his departure. They had to pay a hefty price to bring the 21-year-old Veiga in on a short-term basis, paying an initial €3.8 million loan fee with another potential €1.2 million in add-ons to Chelsea, who will cover all of his salary for the length of the loan.

Veiga arrived in Italy Sunday night and underwent his medicals earlier in the day Monday.

Here are the official details of the deal, courtesy of Juventus' press office:

Turin, 27 January 2025 – Juventus Football Club S.p.A. announces that an agreement with Chelsea Football Club for the temporary acquisition, until 30 June 2025, of the registration rights of the player Da Palma Veiga Renato has been reached for a consideration of € 3.8 million, with additional costs up to € 0.2 million.

The consideration may be increased up to a maximum of € 1.5 million over the duration of the player's contract, upon the achievement of further performance objectives.

Veiga, who signed his seven-year contract with Chelsea in July, has had an interesting first six months in London after arriving from FC Basel. Because of Chelsea's massive squad, Veiga had essentially been limited to "B" squad duty where much of his playing time came in the UEFA Conference League, not the Premier League like he had hoped when he made his €14 million move to England over the summer. The bulk of Veiga's minutes have come during the six Conference League games, with him recording just 181 minutes over seven Premier League appearances.

But that's not all.

A big part of Veiga's desire to head out on loan this month was to get regular time as a center back, rather than where he has played for much of his time at Chelsea so far. As detailed by The Athletic last week, much of Veiga's playing time has come as at left back or even in central midfield, not his natural position in the center of defense.

Chelsea manager Enzo Maresca had this to say about Veiga's desire to play more center back earlier this month:

"I had a chat with Renato. In terms of playing in the position that he is playing with us, that gave him the chance to join the national team and also probably the chance to get this speculation around him. That means clubs are looking for him. Clubs look for players that are doing well, not that are doing badly.

"If there is a player who just wants to play in just one position, they are going to struggle. They have to adapt, they have to learn to play in different positions, which is a good thing for the team."

(Source: The Athletic)

Veiga will certainly get a chance to play as things currently stand. After such a busy January and a February that won't let up much, Gatti and Kalulu have become the two players atop the minutes played chart. With the loss of Bremer and to a lesser extent Juan Cabal to season-ending knee injuries, Juventus' depth at the back has been absolutely zapped, with the hope that Veiga's arrival will provide at least some sort of respite for the two starting center backs who have barely had a break since Bremer's got hurt in early October.

Now that he's officially signed, Veiga will be available to play come this weekend against Empoli. Whether he makes his debut as fast as Randal Kolo Muani did remains to be seen, but he's now on board and has posed for his first set of pictures in bianconero and everything.