Greatest Of All Legends

**15th May 2021**

*Milan, Italy*

On the Uventus coach bus that was heading to the San Siro* stadium in Milan, the Uventus players were discussing among each other as they tried to reduce their nerves before the big game.

They had comfortably won the previous match against Sassuolo by three goals to one and were now back in first place on the league table with a point over Inter Milan.

With only two games left in the season, a win here would mean an instant crowning as the league leaders for the 2020/21 Serie A, do despite being the defending champions of the league title, it was inevitable that there would still be some players who the nerves would get to.

On this one game, hung the balance of their hard work so far, so today's match felt like a competition's finals against their opponents.

To stave off the nerves, the players were discussing about some interesting sports news and rumors and what rumors and news were juicier than transfer news?

The players had been talking about transfer news of some players when for some reason, the conversation had been brought home with someone asking Mckennie about his transfer to Uventus.

Mckennie was on a loan deal to Uventus like Jason was, but unlike Jason, his deal was a deal with an option to buy.

Normally, transfer news was kept under wraps until there were some confirmed changes, but Mckennie was never one to let the rules stop him from having a good time.

He openly admitted to his teammates that the club management had already reached out to him about personal terms and that negotiations of personal terms had already begun with Uventus having decided to keep him around.

Mckennie letting out such juicy gossip seemed to have broken the dam open on the curious ones' minds and questions soon began flying around more and more.

Bentacur and Kulusevski soon admitted that they were being courted by Tottenham, though there was no confirmation of anything yet.

Morata, who was also on a loan to Uventus also admitted that it seemed like he would be having his loan contract renewed despite his good performances at Uventus so far.

His home team still seemed to have a surplus amount of forwards and there was currently no space for Morata at the moment, so rather than having a player of his caliber sitting on the bench and wasting away while receiving an exorbitant salary, the club had been happy to renegotiate with Uventus who were seeking to extend Morata's loan spell with them.

Not that Morata himself minded. He was enjoying his football at Uventus.

The conversation continued, however, the level of juiciness of the conversation shot to a level of over ten thousand when someone turned the conversation to Ronaldo.

There had been news that the clubs were still recovering from the losses caused by the lockdown due to the worldwide virus outbreak and Uventus had been especially hit by the losses.

Some of the players still had outstanding wages that had not yet been paid due to the financial strain from that period and though the team was slowly getting back on track, they still had quite a few unpaid debts and Ronaldo's very high wages weren't helping matters.

They were already owing him almost twenty million Euros in wages and though they had recovered that they could now keep up with paying the wages, the debts were not going anywhere, hence there was talk about Uventus considering a decision to offload Ronaldo in the summer and invest his wages somewhere else.

Apparently, that was part of the reason why the management was considering selling a few other players as well… as well as why they were only extending Morata's loan spell instead of signing him on a transfer deal right away.

"Won't winning the league and the Champions League help with that though? I mean, the prize money is pretty good," Mckennie asked.

"Assuming we win those two competitions, it would definitely help out a lot, but don't forget that we are not the only ones hit by a huge loss in finances," Jason said.

"Yes, apparently the prize pool for those competitions are a lot smaller than in previous years, so we can't really tell what will happen now. It's a rumor anyway, don't pay too much attention to it," Chiellini stepped in to explain before the team's morale was affected, but he silently noted that Ronaldo didn't say anything to go against the rumor.

"Anyway, what about you Jason?" Chiellini quickly changed the topic of the conversation.

"He's the club magnet right now for sure," Mckennie snickered as everyone turned to Jason who froze like a deer in headlights.

"Er… well, there's definitely interest from a few clubs. Nothing concrete yet though," Jason said a bit hesitantly.

"Well, it's usually like that, though I thought you'd have one concrete offer by now," Dybala mumbled, understanding thet situation somewhat.

Once a player was considered a youth talent and the player's price shot up, offers didn't just come willy nilly as the clubs that would be in the running for these sort of players had been reduced to just the few top clubs who could afford the transfer fee and the salary for such a player.

The teams that would make offers would even be further reduced if not many teams had a need for such a player. An example was right there on the bus.

De Ligt was a player who was very talented and showed up at the continental stage at an early age, however, teams like Madrid, Bayern, Barcelona and many other top teams didn't make offers for him because they had world class defenders of their own and adding another money sink to the roster was not a financially smart decision.

Jason's case wasn't the same, but it was similar enough.

Unless they needed someone in his position, or were rich enough to throw money around willy nilly, they wouldn't make an offer. Added to that by Jason's peculiar contractual situation, his nationality, or the fact that many clubs had strained finances at the moment, it really did feel like Jason wasn't being much sought after despite his great performances.