World Cup-winner Julian Alvarez has left Manchester City and will play for Atletico Madrid in La Liga, where he will hope to find game time easier to come by. On the 6th of August 2024, the two clubs agreed a deal worth almost £82m in total, with €75m – around £64m – being paid upfront and an additional £17m or so in possible add-ons.
This makes the Argentina international one of Atleti’s most expensive signings ever. They paid well over £100m (approximately €127m) for Portuguese forward Joao Felix but Alvarez becomes their second costliest purchase. They will certainly hope it works out better for them than Felix did but on the face of it the signing of Alvarez looks like a very good deal for all three parties involved.
JULIÁN. ALVAREZ. IS. HERE. pic.twitter.com/LBncL6KnUg
— Atlético de Madrid (@atletienglish) August 13, 2024
Given how he has performed for his country, and also with City in both the Premier League and the Champions League, Diego Simeone can be sure of what he is getting. Felix was more about potential, whereas Alvarez is much closer to the finished article. The manager of Atletico Madrid will know all about his countryman’s early career in Argentina with River Plate and will have almost certainly seen every one of Alvarez’s 36 appearances for La Albiceleste.
For the player, a move to Spain will bring him closer to the culture he has grown up with, both on and off the pitch. The biggest plus, however, is the fact that there won’t be a giant Viking goal machine in front of him in the queue for the role of main striker. No manager will guarantee a player minutes, but clearly Alvarez will be the first choice at Atletico, and so finally he will get the game-time he has long sought.
Last of all, from City’s point of view they have made a huge profit on a player who did a good job whenever he was called upon. Pep Guardiola agreed a deal to buy the young Argentine for around £14m, which even then seemed like a real bargain. Even City have to be aware of the implications of the Profit and Sustainability regulations, and so selling a player who very much wanted to leave for a profit that could reach almost £70m has to be seen as good business. Pep and City have long maintained the view that they would not stand in the way of a player who didn’t want to stay at the club and they have stuck to that with Alvarez.
Julian Alvarez’s Man City Career
Alvarez was a callow 21-year-old when the wheels were put in motion for him to leave River Plate and join City. He completed the deal on his 22nd birthday, the 31st of January 2022, and moving from Buenos Aires to Manchester at that age was sure to be a real challenge. Partly for that reason, the £14m deal included a proviso that Alvarez would actually stay with River Plate until that July, effectively being loaned straight back to them.
This gave Alvarez and City time to make sure everything was perfectly in place by the time the youngster came to move to England. It also meant he was six months older, which at that young age is not insignificant. He made his bow for City in the 2022 Community Shield as Liverpool beat Pep’s men 3-1. It was a day of mixed emotions though, as Alvarez scored on debut and just over a week later, on the 7th of August 2022, he made his first Premier League appearance.
More firsts would follow, with his first PL goals coming later that month, and a first Champions League goal in October. Important strikes kept coming, with the Argentine netting in a CL semi final, helping his side progress to the final, and he also got the only goal of the game in a 1-0 win over Chelsea that secured yet another Premier League title for the Cityzens.
World Cup Win Complicates Matters
In between making his City debut and helping them to an incredible treble of PL, FA Cup and Champions League, Alvarez also managed to claim the World Cup with Argentina. He played all seven games for Argentina, starting the final five. He scored four goals, making him the third-top scorer, whilst he also registered an assist.
This was brilliant for him and, in some senses, City, but it rather complicated things too. He had just become the first player in history to win a continental treble and the World Cup in the same season and yet he found himself undeniably second pick at his club. As a World Cup winner he felt he deserved more minutes, but Erling Haaland, signed just a month or so before Alvarez made his City debut, was simply too good.
It took a while for this issue to really come to a head, with Guardiola always trying to do his best to keep his many stars happy, even when they are on the bench. Of course, City play so many games that rotation is possible, even necessary, but over time it became clear that Alvarez was not content being an understudy.
He made 67 appearances in the PL over two seasons, a very respectable figure, but the majority of those were from the bench. In all he 103 times for City, recording 36 goals, but those stats look far better when one dives deeper into them. In the Premier League he played just over 4,000 minutes, meaning around 60 minutes per game, making his 20 goals and 10 assists even more impressive. In the Champions League he played 17 times, delivering eight goals and four assists, equating to a goal involvement every 62 minutes he was on the pitch.
The Future with Atletico
Alvarez will leave City as a popular player who made the most of the chances he was given. Atletico know what they are getting, which is a hugely talented, skilful, intelligent player who will score and create a lot of goals. The former River Plate man will be excited to play more regularly and will be at a team competing for trophies on all fronts, even if they face a huge task overcoming their city rivals Real.
Alvarez is still just 24, so is theoretically coming into his peak years. His silky style, intelligence, composure and creativity, allied with his pace, goalscoring ability and direct style are sure to make him a hit with Atletico. It will be exciting to watch how his career develops in the years ahead.