Official! Defender all but at Benfica is hijacked by Gattuso | OneFootball

Josip Sutalo already has a new club for the 2026/27 season. The Croatian centre-back was officially announced this Saturday as a new Lazio signing, after the Italian club reached an agreement with Ajax for the loan of the international.

while the purchase option has been set at 7.5 million.

At 26, the centre-back therefore leaves Ajax after 108 appearances and four goals for the Dutch club. Developed at Dinamo Zagreb, Sutalo also has 37 caps for Croatia and started in all four matches played by the national team at the last World Cup.

The move to Italy thus represents a new chapter in the defender’s career, who had been strongly linked with Benfica during this summer transfer window. Sutalo was one of the solutions most appreciated by the Eagles’ hierarchy to strengthen the heart of the defence.

The Italian club moved forward with formal talks with Ajax at a time when the Amsterdam club wanted to negotiate the Croatian international’s transfer for a fee in the region of 12 to 13 million euros. Benfica thus ended up missing out on one of the centre-backs it had identified as an option for the defence.

This article was translated into English by Artificial Intelligence. You can read the original version in 🇵🇹 here.