This time last year, I wouldn’t have even bothered seriously considering the question “Could Donnarumma really join Juventus?” but after what we saw in 2016, I have no choice but to take a different stance- we now live in an age where you can’t dismiss things like this anymore.
 

In this calendar year we saw Leicester win the Premier League, the Cubs triumph in the World Series as well as Portugal pulling a huge upset without Ronaldo in the Euro final against France in Paris no less. And if you think stunning surprises only happened in world of sports, consider that the former host of Celebrity Apprentice won the US presidency in addition to Axl Rose and Slash reuniting after 20 years in the apply titled “Not in this lifetime” tour. So to quote Garnett right the Celtics won their last NBA title “Anything is possible”…

 

After we saw Marotta swoop in and sign Pjanic and Higuain last summer, I honestly don’t blame Juventini for thinking they have a realistic chance of eventually signing Donnarumma to replace Buffon. I also think Milanisti have reasons for concern when you consider that Mino Raiola is Donnarumma’s agent- considering that there are many factors in this potential deal let’s break them down one by one:
 

Despite only being 17, Gigio Donnarumma has been Milan’s starting keeper for over a full calendar year. He has made it all the way to the senior Italian national league team, and we have enough of a sample size with him to say he’s much further ahead than Simone Scuffet, who so far hasn’t lived up to the huge hype after his debut season.

 

While Milan today is much more focused on building around the jewels from their youth system, they have lost some intriguing young players in recent years like Aubameyang, Darmian and Saponara. Of course there have been plenty of other prospects like Cristante and Mastour who haven’t panned out too. At this point Milan knows that Donnarumma is the real deal and seeing him go, to another Serie A team no less, would be a tougher loss even than Aubameyang.
 

A huge player in Donnarumma’s future is of course his agent Mino Raiola- and to me the most underrated factor in the whole situation is fact Donnarumma and his family picked Raiola to represent them. There are plenty of great agents available, especially in Italy, so while it’s much easier for fans to resent the greedy agent, it’s very important to remember players who hire Raiola know exactly what they’re getting into. If Donnarumma and his family wanted a less flashy and less powerful agent to leverage on their behalf, they certainly had other options including Pastorello who does a lot of business with Milan.

 

Raiola made a name for himself well over ten years ago when he started representing Zlatan Ibrahimovic. He was instrumental in creating a feud between the Swedish striker and one of his teammates at Ajax, which was the driver in getting Ibrahimovic to leave the Dutch club at a reasonable price. Since then Raiola has been behind many huge transfers, he certainly knows how to get his clients what they want.
 

Raiola has historically had a very strong relationship with Milan’s current executive director Adriano Galliani and this is where it gets interesting. The sale of the rossoneri to new Chinese investors is set to be completed on December 13th (although after the derby Berlusconi raised some doubts), and everything points to Galliani leaving the club. His replacements Fassone and Mirabelli, are arriving from Inter and while with the nerazzurri they went out of their way not to do business with Raiola.

 

After the derby, Berlusconi suggested he could stay on as honorary president with the new Chinese investors owning the club, he also stated if they decide to go this route he would like to keep Galliani on board, which would only help with Donnarumma because of his work track record with Raiola. Should both Galliani and Berlusconi leave, it would be very reasonable for Fassone and Mirabelli to start fresh with Raiola because locking up Donnarumma is so vital.


 

Donnarumma and Raiola will have the ability to sign a new long term deal with Milan on Gigio’s 18th birthday next February 25th. By then Milan’s ownership situation will be resolved, and should the sale go as planned, then everyone will have a sense of how ambitious the new ownership group is. If Milan’s new regime shows the willingness to spend big on the transfer market, it would only give Donnarumma more reason to want to stick around long term.

From Juventus’ perspective there are many factors to evaluate. For one unlike Higuain and Pjanic, it’s almost impossible that Donnarumma will have an exit clause for them to use- Raiola wants the market to dictate what his best clients are worth so he will not lock into a price next February. Also Juventus has been fairly conservative with transfers; sure they acquired numerous big names in recent years, but they financed almost all those purchases with selling players like Vidal and Pogba. Signing Donnarumma would come with enormous costs.
 

Another huge factor is how long Gigi Buffon continues playing; it’s almost unthinkable to see Juventus making a serious attempt to sign Donnarumma to be a backup. Buffon’s agent Silvano Martina recently left the door open to his client continuing on even past the 2018 World Cup, so by then Donnarumma could either be a key player within a very ambitious new project at Milan or already playing for another club.

 

When you look at the last time Juventus had to replace a truly legendary keeper they went with an understated option. Dino Zoff had a very comparable career to Buffon, and when he finally left the game in 1983 at the age of 40, Juventus brought in Stefano Tacconi from Avellino to complete with Zoff’s backup Luciano Bodini. 


 

Tacconi certainly didn’t have a comparable profile to Donnarumma today, but he was an excellent replacement- he ended up winning every trophy at the club level at Juventus. The only reason Tacconi didn’t play with the Azzurri is because he was a contemporary to Walter Zenga, probably the most underrated Italian national team keeper of my life time.  

It’s certainly possible that when Juventus needs to finally replace Buffon, that they decide to follow the Tacconi blue print by going for someone like Perin or Sportiello. While they were bold enough to take away key players from Roma and Napoli, they have a much closer relationship to Milan than those two clubs.


 

So what does the future hold for Donnarumma? His decision to hire Raiola certainly shows he wants to dictate the terms of what his career will look like, an ambitious plan by Milan’s new ownership with Galliani potentially still being in the mix would make it very likely he stays long term with the rossoneri, should that not be the case going to a club abroad would be the most likely outcome, but 2016 has taught me too much that I cannot exclude the Juventus option.
  

David Amoyal is the manager of the English page on Gianluca Di Marzio's website where he also writes weekly articles. David covers transfer news for ESPN, and has appeared on numerous radio shows on Sirius XM in the US as well as TalkSport in the UK. David is the former editor in chief of Vavel USA and his articles have been featured in many sites around the world. You can follow him on Twitter @DavidAmoyal