Tottenham Hotspur‘s Radu Drăgușin joined the Premier League side from Genoa in January 2024.
Two years ago, Drăgușin’s agent Florin Manea had confirmed interest from both Napoli and Bayern Munich.
However, the defender decided to move to Tottenham, where he hasn’t had quite the impact he had at Genoa.
Juventus first brought him to Italy in 2018 and let him go on loan to Sampdoria and Salernitana during the 2021/22 season.
The Romania international moved to Genoa on a loan deal in July 2022 and joined them permanently a year later. During his time with the Italian club, the centre-back played 62 matches.
According to ProSport in Romania, Radu Drăgușin wanted to move to SC Heerenveen instead of Genoa, who were then in Serie B.
Former Romania international Răzvan Raț managed to change his man.
Tottenham man received transfer advice
The 44-year-old, who had a spell at West Ham United during his playing career, convinced his compatriot to pick Genoa over the Eredivisie side. He made the call at the request of the defender’s agent, Florin Manea.
Raț told the defender “you’re going to get haemorrhoids on the bench!” at Heerenveen.
He said: “I was in Bali, on vacation, and I got a call from Florin Manea. Drăgușin’s loan at Salernitana had ended, and Juventus wanted to get rid of him. He was no longer part of their plans.
“And Manea told me: ‘You talk to Drăgușin too. He has an offer from Heerenveen, and he really wants to go there. I talked to Andrés [Blazquez], from Genoa. They want him, they’re buying him, but the player doesn’t want to go to Serie B’. You convince him not to go to Heerenveen. Because it’s better. It’s Serie B, it has better visibility’.”
“At the same time, Andres called me: ‘Aren’t you going to talk to the player, convince him to come to us? Let’s tell him that, even if he makes a mistake and I don’t know what, we’ll we care, we see a good player in him’.”
“I took the phone number, I called him: ‘Hi, I’m Răzvan Raț! I want to talk a little about your career’. And I told him what the club wants, what Andres had explained to me.”
“I told him: ‘It’s Serie B, but still, you have visibility. At Heerenveen, if you go there, you’ll make a bad mistake twice and you’ll end up on the bench. If I were you, I would choose this’. That was my discussion with him, and I told him that it was his decision. I talked to him for about 30 minutes. And that was it.”
What next for Spurs defender
The efforts put in by Răzvan Raț, Andrés Blazquez and Florin Manea worked out as Radu Drăgușin ended up choosing Genoa.
This helped him get a move to the Premier League side, where his future needs sorting out after this season.
There were multiple Serie A sides who wanted to sign him in the winter market, and there’s also been German interest.
On April 30th, Sport Witness covered claims from Romania that Drăgușin has said yes to RB Leipzig, who have to find an agreement with Tottenham Hotspur.
Maybe Răzvan Raț can get on the phone again.