In the long seven weeks since Bilbao, there has been an anxiety among some Tottenham Hotspur fans that they might not get to see Cristian Romero in a lilywhite shirt again.
The trophy parade through north London on May 23 was the last time supporters clapped eyes on him, as he missed what proved Ange Postecoglou’s last game in charge against Brighton & Hove Albion two days later. But on Wednesday, July 9, Romero returned for pre-season, meeting up with Postecoglou’s replacement, Thomas Frank, and his new coaching staff for the first time.
In one sense, nothing is surprising or interesting about that. People turn up for their jobs every day without it making the news. But at the same time, everything that Romero does in the coming weeks will attract interest because there has been so much speculation about his future this year. People want to know whether he will be staying at the club or not. Everyone is waiting for clarity.
And this week, we have inched towards clarity, and not just because Romero showed up at Hotspur Way. Rather, it’s because The Athletic has learned that Atletico Madrid, who had been leading the chase for his services all summer, have decided to stop their pursuit of the Argentina international. They are already starting to look for alternatives in defence. And at Atletico, they believe Tottenham will now try to tie Romero to a new contract.
We should always remember that some of what happens at this time of year should be viewed as negotiation and that the window still has a long way to run until September 1, when it finally shuts. But if Atletico have fully given up on their dream of signing Romero, that is as significant a moment as any in Tottenham’s summer.
Atletico coach Diego Simeone never made any secret of his admiration for countryman Romero, even admitting in public how much he wants him, because he’s a “great player”. Romero’s Argentine team-mate and Atletico striker Julian Alvarez added to the noise, too, saying in early May that he “hope(s) it happens” and that Romero would “help us a lot”.
And it never took a big imaginative leap to see Romero in the Spanish side’s red and white stripes. Perhaps more than any other modern player, he embodies some of the win-at-all-costs qualities that Simeone’s best Atletico teams have had.
But in the end, Atletico never even formally approached Tottenham about the signing.
For his part, Romero never exactly shut down the questions about his future, telling an Argentinian broadcaster in April how much he would “love” to play in La Liga, “the league I’m missing”, having played three seasons in Italy’s Serie A before coming to the Premier League.
As a player heading into the penultimate year of his contract, Romero will know very well that the power dynamic is starting to move in his direction. This summer would be the last chance for Tottenham to sell him for a significant fee before his value in the market starts to diminish. Twelve months from now, Romero would only have a year left on his deal, a lucrative free transfer in 2027 would be on the horizon, and the dynamic would be totally different.
The next question is what Spurs intend to do.
Their position throughout has been that they do not want to lose one of their best players, and, as mentioned above, the view in the Spanish capital is that now, with two years of his current contract left, Tottenham will try to secure Romero’s future with a new deal. And it would be perfectly natural for them to try to do so, rather than to let one of their top assets go into his final year.
Of course, the reality of the market is that if Romero were to sign a new long-term contract and hand over all of his leverage in doing so, it would need to be financially worth his while. Sometimes players do this in their peak years, such as with Harry Kane in 2018 or Son Heung-min three years later, but generally they do not. Unless the bank is being broken for them.
This could now be one of the questions that hang over Spurs’ forthcoming season.
There is certainly no doubt inside the club about how highly the 27-year-old is regarded. Everyone knows that they have a unique player on their hands, and that going into this, the penultimate year of his contract, coming off the back of last season, his market value is at its peak.
Remember that Romero was not exactly cheap when Spurs signed him in the first place.
It was summer 2021 and Fabio Paratici had just shown up as their new managing director of football. He knew Romero well from Italy — signing him from Genoa for Juventus in 2019, then loaning him back — and believed the then 23-year-old was worth paying a big fee for. Paratici knew that the €55million (£47.4m; $64.3m at current rates) asking price Atalanta set would prove money well spent.
Tottenham also had to move fast that summer because Lionel Messi had been so impressed by Romero as they helped Argentina win the Copa America in the July that he was trying to persuade Barcelona to make him a team-mate at Camp Nou, too. (As it turned out, Messi left for Paris Saint-Germain later in that same window.)
Four years on, that signing looks like one of the best of the Paratici era.
Romero has established himself as one of the best centre-backs in world football. He might not have the consistency and permanent availability of some players, but when he is fit and focused, there is nobody like him. Especially in big games with trophies on the line.
That has been clear enough with Argentina for years.
He has won all three major international trophies has played for, adding the 2022 World Cup and 2024 Copa America to that 2021 triumph in the latter. In those big games in Qatar three years ago especially, with the eyes of the world on him, he seemed to find a new level within himself, playing with a remarkably calm confidence and a refusal to get distracted by anything other than the sport’s ultimate prize.
Up until the past few months, Tottenham fans would justifiably say that they would love to see that Romero playing for them, the ice-cold, win-at-all-costs guy. And the beauty of last season is that those Spurs supporters finally did. It was the return of Romero from four months out with foot and groin injuries, more than anything else, that helped them win the Europa League in May.
He was note-perfect for both legs of the quarter-final against Eintracht Frankfurt, both legs against Bodo/Glimt in the next round and then integral to Spurs’ triumph over Manchester United in Bilbao. It was Romero most of all who set the tone among the squad in the build-up to that final, Romero who led by example on the pitch, keeping all of his team-mates together and in line with the game plan.
Come the final whistle, Romero had his fourth trophy from the fourth final of his senior career. It is hard to imagine how Tottenham could have done it without him.
At the start of the summer, it felt as if Bilbao and the parade would be the end of the story for Romero and Spurs, that he would wave goodbye, having taken them back to where they wanted to be. But now, with Atletico turning elsewhere, we will likely see him go into his fifth season at the club.
Which is unambiguously good news for a team that cannot afford to lose any more leadership, but who will surely throw up a new set of questions over the next year.
(Top photo: Alex Pantling/Getty Images)