The master of tiny circles is heading back to the club he played at a decade ago before he made his way to Europe.
Arthur Melo will be one of the most memorable Juventus players in recent memory. Not because of anything special he did on the field, though. It’s more to do with what has happened ever since his debut season in Turin and the tiny circles he brought with him from Barcelona.
Since the summer of 2022, Arthur has not played a game for Juventus. He’s been under contract with the club — hell, he’s even gotten a contract extension to spread out his large salary — but he hasn’t played a single minute for Max Allegri, Thiago Motta and now Igor Tudor over the course of the last four years.
And that trend is about to continue to the surprise of absolutely nobody.
Multiple reports out of Italy on Thursday evening have stated that the 29-year-old Arthur, the outcast of all Juventus outcasts at this stage, is set to return to the club in Brazilian in which he made his name, Gremio, on a season-long loan deal. Fabrizio Romano said that this will be a dry loan and that’s it, with Gremio not having any sort of option to buy come next summer or anything like that. According to TuttoJuve’s Mirko Di Natale, Gremio will cover the entirety of Arthur’s salary, which is reportedly around €4.5 million net a season following his contract extension that spread out his wages but added another year onto his contract with Juventus. It now runs through the 2026-27 season. Seriously.
Since the summer of 2022, Arthur has done the following:
- Spent the 2022-23 season on loan at Liverpool, playing a grand total of 13 minutes.
- Spent the 2023-24 season on loan at Fiorentina, having his best season in years but didn’t stay in Florence because La Viola couldn’t afford his salary over the long term and didn’t want to pay the €20 million option to buy him outright.
- Spent the second half of the 2024-25 season on loan at Girona, but came back to Juventus this summer and repeated the same cycle of knowing he’s out of the squad the second preseason training begins.
So, with that being said, let’s just go ahead and do a little compare and contrast, shall we?
- Arthur made a total of 63 appearances in his two seasons with Juventus.
- In the three seasons since then, he’s made a grand total of … 62 appearances.
In short, that sums up Arthur’s career right there. He’s gotten chances to try and get things back on track, and outside of his season-long loan spell at Fiorentina he hasn’t proven to teams that he’s worth more than their investment at that time. Maybe a return home to Brazil can at least give him the chance to play consistently for the first time in a couple of years. But it sure as hell ain’t happening in Turin — and that’s been the case for three years now.
Category: General Sports
