It’s difficult to imagine a future where Darwin Nuñez is kicking a ball about the pitch for Liverpool Football Club come the start of the 2025-26 season.
The £75M striker’s graft and smile might have made him a fan favourite, and clearly former manager Jürgen Klopp seemed won over by his graft and that damn smile, but to say the 25-year-old doesn’t appear to be in Arne Slot’s plans would be an understatement.
The question, then, is where he ends up. Liverpool rebuffed a reported £65M approach from the Saudi Pro League in January, preferring to keep Nuñez around for the title push, but if a similar bid arrived now the result would likely be different.
Does the player, though, see his immediate future in the sportswashing-slash-retirement league? Spanish rumour mongers Mundo Deportivo don’t think so—they think that he dreams of Diego Simeone and Atletico Madrid.
However, they think the only way Atleti could get the deal done would be as a loan with an obligation to buy, and we’re skeptical that would be Liverpool’s preferred outcome.
Depending on how it’s structured and just how obligational said obligation is might shift things a little bit—especially if Darwin and Atleti really are the star-crossed lovers modern football didn’t know it needed—but for Liverpool a straight sale at a price point at least close to what they paid is the goal.
Still, for Nuñez, if the goal is to revive his career and perhaps make good on the promise he showed back in his Benfica days, there are few clubs and managers that in theory at least seem as though they’d be a better fit than Atleti and Simeone.
We might go as far as to say we hope this rumour comes to pass—albeit with Atleti realizing that they can pay for Nuñez now, actually—as a Saudi move for a player of his talent and at his age would seem rather a waste. We’ll be waiting to see how this all develops.