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Ajax is round with the Spanish Villarreal and the Argentinian Geronimo Rulli. The 30-year-old goalkeeper will play for the champion of the Netherlands in the coming seasons.
Mike VerweijBron: The Telegraph
Including bonuses, more than 10 million euros will be paid for the final item. Trainer Alfred Schreuder was looking for an experienced goalie in addition to the three keepers Jay Gorter (22), Remko Pasveer (39) and Maarten Stekelenburg (40). Rulli will not be the only purchase from the team from Amsterdam. In addition to a right winger, a central defender is also on Schreuder’s wish list, who said goodbye to Daley Blind.
Ajax is active on the transfer market because, after the departure of various basic players in the summer, it has not strengthened itself sufficiently with a view to the national title.
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Experience, but younger than competition
Rulli was Argentina’s second goalkeeper behind penalty killer Emiliano Martinez, who killed the Netherlands in the penalty shootout in the quarter-finals of the World Cup last month. Rulli did not play for the brand new world champion in Qatar.
With Rulli, Ajax hopes to bring in an experienced, but obviously younger goalkeeper than Pasveer and Stekelenburg. The Argentinian comes from the youth academy of Estudiantes and played a total of fifty games in the first team of the club, which sold him to the Uruguayan Deportivo Maldonado. In 2014, Rulli went on a rental basis to Real Sociedad, after which Manchester City bought him from the Uruguayan owner for 4 million euros in 2016 and immediately rented it back to Sociedad and later to Montpellier.
In the end, Rulli signed a four-year contract with Villarreal. In the service of that club, he caused the most sensation in May 2021 by winning the Europa League at the expense of Manchester United. Rulli scored the twentieth penalty himself in the necessary penalty series and then saved David de Gea’s. Rulli has played a total of 331 matches in professional football.
