One of Real Madrid's stars is closing in on a switch to the Italian league during the ongoing summer transfer window.
According to the Spanish newspaper "Marca", Argentine forward Franco Mastantuono is on the brink of leaving Real Madrid for Fiorentina. He missed his side's collective training this morning at the Valdebebas sports city.
For the second day running, the player confined himself to gym work. He is carrying no injury. The reason for his absence lies in the wait for his move to the Italian club to be finalised.
The Argentine has agreed to Fiorentina's project, the newspaper revealed, with the two clubs now thrashing out the final details of a loan deal that looks imminent.
Mastantuono sits one step away from Fiorentina, the first club to open the door to negotiations with Real Madrid. La Viola got ahead of their Serie A rivals, moving before anyone else to secure his services on loan. That initiative is about to bear fruit.
Tuesday brought a fresh meeting between the two clubs after the player agreed to move to the side from the city of Florence.
Talks with Fabio Grosso, Fiorentina's coach, and Fabio Paratici, the club's sporting director, left Mastantuono convinced by the role awaiting him. Fiorentina offer him what Real Madrid could not guarantee in the short term: more playing minutes, continuity, and a key role to showcase his talent in Europe.
Signs of this departure had already surfaced at Valdebebas. The player was left out over recent days from the squad for the friendly in Austria, against Fiorentina of all sides, in a strange twist of the fixture list.
He trained alone, away from the group, across the past two days, restricting himself to gym work while his loan deal is completed.
Negotiations now hinge on one thing: how to split the salary between the two clubs. That final detail will determine when the deal goes through in the coming days.
Once it is resolved, Franco will head to Italy to show all his talent away from the Bernabéu. The loan will let him grow and develop away from the pressures that dogged his difficult first season in the white shirt.
Mastantuono began pre-season aware of how hard it would be to stay under coach Mourinho.
The coach admires the player's performance and potential enormously. Even so, coach and club both accept how difficult a starting spot would be, and both would rather he collect playing minutes elsewhere.