COMMENT
A number of very talented players spent most of last season warming the Real Madrid bench. Danilo is not one of them.
When los Blancos signed the Brazilian from Porto for €31.5 million in 2015, they thought he would be their answer to Dani Alves. They were wrong. Spectacularly wrong.
Juve open Danilo talks with Real
It is, therefore, staggering that Juventus think that Danilo could actually prove a worthy replacement for his compatriot, whose departure from Turin was confirmed on Thursday.
They may both hail from the same country, and play in the same position - but that is where the comparison ends.
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Dani Alves is one of the best right-backs the game has ever seen. Danilo is one of the worst signings that Real Madrid have ever made.
That Real Madrid are requesting €30m for his services is actually amusingly cheeky, given it would represent a minor loss on a player whose time at the Santiago Bernabeu has been nothing short of disastrous.
Juve fans certainly aren't laughing at the moment, though.
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Their club may only have offered an initial €15m for his services but that is already €15m more than they paid for Alves!
Danilo, of course, could take a leaf out of the Anderson approach to career appraisal and point to his impressive medal collection during his two years in Madrid: two Champions Leagues; one Liga title, one UEFA Super Cup; and one FIFA Club World Cup.
However, the part he played in those triumphs was negligible. He is essentially the Brazilian David May - the ex-Manchester United backup defender who won a host of honours in the 1990s and was teased for appearing in the centre of photos after their famous 1999 Champions League final victory.
Danilo rarely played and when he did, he was terrible. He was the common denominator in all of Real's worst performances during the 2015-16 campaign, playing every minute of every single defeat.
His form during his first season in Spain became the subject of much ridicule and he has admitted that he found it difficult living in such a highly pressurised and intensely scrutinised environment.
"The media pressure is the largest in the world, without doubt," Danilo mused in an interview with SporTV.
"An error, no matter how small, goes viral. A mistake becomes very great even if it is very small.
"And, of course, when you do something good, it is also very great."
The problem is, though, that Danilo has rarely done anything good in a Real Madrid shirt.
Omar Momani
Indeed, even though last season may have gone slightly better than his first, there were still two comical own goals in the Copa del Rey, the second of which contributed to Real's elimination at the hands of Celta.
Juve's hope, of course, is that they could help him rediscover the form that saw him break into the Selecao squad at just 20 and become such a success at Porto.
The Bianconeri will feel that, under the tutelage of Massimiliano Allegri, he could develop in much the same way as Alex Sandro, whom Danilo played alongside at the Dragao.
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Both Brazilians left Porto in the summer of 2015 but their careers have gone in very different directions since then.
Alex Sandro was by no means the finished product when he arrived in Turin - he spent his first season in Serie A battling with Patrice Evra for a first-team berth - but his determination and willingness to learn enabled him to become one of the finest full-backs in the world and he is now set to move to Chelsea for a fee in excess of €60m.
Danilo, though, is not even worth a quarter of that fee. Alex Sandro may have gone forwards, but Danilo has gone backwards.
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By the end of his time at Real, he had very much become a part of Zinedine Zidane's 'B team', selected only for Liga games when Dani Carvajal was injured or resting ahead of Champions League matches.
Of course, a number of great players were forced to play second fiddle to Cristiano Ronaldo and Co. at the tail end of last season.
However, Danilo is not a world-class performer who would walk into nearly any other side in Europe.
He is not Alvaro Morata. He is not James Rodriguez. He is Danilo, Real's running joke, and signing him would make Juventus a laughing stock.
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