Manchester
City
confirmed this Thursday the purchase of Argentine star
Claudio Diablito Echeverri
for 12.5 million pounds (about 14 million euros), from
River Plate
.
The 18-year-old hitmaker signed a contract with the 'Sky Blues' until June 2028, but will remain at the Núñez club until the end of the year.
Echeverri made his debut in June 2023 with River and has played six games with the first team since then, in addition to playing 23 games with the Argentina Under 17 team and training with the senior team, along with Lionel Messi, Ángel Di María and the rest of the world champions.
At this moment he is in Venezuela, being part of the Under 23 team that is competing in the South American Pre-Olympic in search of qualification for Paris 2024. Although he was not part of the starting team, he entered the field in the first game against Paraguay and was key to rescuing a tie at the end of the match.
In this way, Diablito will follow a plan very similar to that of Julián Álvarez, who signed in January 2022 with City, but did not join Pep Guardiola's team in the second half of that year, once River was eliminated from the Liberators.
In its statement, Manchester City also mentions Martín Demichelis, the River coach who had an outstanding time as a footballer for the English club and who will be recorded as the coach who gave this young promise of Argentine football his debut in the First Division.
It was in June 2023, when "he recorded an assist in the 3-1 victory over Instituto Córdoba," says the text shared by Manchester City on their social networks.
And he adds, to continue summarizing the young but meteoric career of the young man from Chaco: "Then, he captained Argentina in the U-17 World Cup, and scored a hat-trick in the 3-0 quarterfinal victory over Brazil. Without However, they were eliminated on penalties in the semifinals by Germany, but Echeverri received the bronze ball as the third top scorer of the tournament."
"Echeverri follows in the footsteps of the World Champion in Qatar 2022, Julián Álvarez, who moved to City from River in 2022, and joins a long list of Argentines who have joined the club," closes the City text.
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